Hit and Run

2

Dot must have been sitting right next to the phone. She picked it up halfway through the first ring and said, “That wasn’t you, was it?”

“Of course not.”

“I didn’t think so. The picture they showed on CNN didn’t look much like the one they sent us.”

It made him nervous, talking like this on a cell phone. The technology kept improving, to the point where you had to take it for granted that there was a record somewhere of every call you made, and that the authorities could access the information in a heartbeat. If you used a cell phone, they could pinpoint the location of it when you made the call. They kept building better mousetraps, and the mice had to be correspondingly more resourceful. Lately, whenever he had a job, he would buy two prepaid cell phones for cash from a store on West Twenty-third Street, making up a name and address for their records. He’d give one to Dot and keep the other for himself, and the only calls either would make were to the other. He’d called a few days ago, to report his arrival in Des Moines, and he’d called again earlier that morning to say that they’d told him to wait at least one more day, although he could have hit the guy and been on his way home by now.

And he was calling now because someone had just killed the governor of Ohio. Which would have been noteworthy under any circumstances, given that John Tatum Longford, the best OSU running back since Archie Griffin, who’d gone to law school after he blew out his knee in his one pro season with the Bengals, was personable and charismatic and the first black governor ever to grace the statehouse in Columbus. But Governor Longford had not been in Columbus when a well-placed bullet blew out more than his knee, had not in fact been anywhere in Ohio. The man was a hot presidential prospect, and Iowa was one of those important early states, and the night before Longford had been in Ames, addressing a group of students and faculty at Iowa State University. From there the governor and his party had driven down to Des Moines, where he’d spent the night at Terrace Hill as the guest of the governor of Iowa. At 10:30 the next morning he’d appeared onstage at a high school auditorium, and around noon he’d shown up to address a Rotary luncheon. Then the gunshot, and the race to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

“My guy’s white,” he told Dot. “And short and fat, like the photograph.”

“It was a head shot, wasn’t it? I mean the photograph, not what happened just now. So you couldn’t really tell that he was short. Or fat, as far as that goes.”

“He was jowly.”

“Well.”

“And you could certainly tell he was white.”

“No argument there. The man was white as the ace of clouds.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I saw my guy just yesterday morning, I was almost close enough to spit on him.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“What I’m getting at is that I could have done the job and been home by now. I almost did it, anyway, Dot. With the gun or with my hands. I was supposed to wait but I thought, hell, why wait? They’d have been pissed but I’d have been out of here, and instead I’m in the middle of a manhunt for a killer they haven’t identified yet. Unless there’s been something on the news in the last few minutes?”

“I’ve got the set on,” she said, “and there hasn’t. Maybe you should just come home.”

“I was thinking of that. But when you think what airport security is going to be like around here—”

“No, don’t even try. You’ve got a rental, right? You could drive to, I don’t know, Chicago? And catch a flight there.”

“Maybe.”

“Or just drive all the way. Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”

“You don’t think they’ll have road blocks set up?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“Of course I didn’t do anything, but the ID’s fake, and just attracting any attention—”

“Is not the greatest idea in the world.”

He took a moment, thought about it. “You know,” he said, “the son of a bitch who did this, they’ll probably catch him in a matter of hours. My guess is he’ll be killed resisting arrest.”

“Which will save somebody the trouble of sending a latter-day Jack Ruby to take him out.”

“You asked if this was my doing.”

“I really knew it wasn’t.”

“Of course not,” he said, “because you know I’d never touch anything like this. High-profile stuff, it doesn’t matter how much they pay, because you don’t live long enough to spend it. If the cops don’t kill you your employers will, because it’s not safe to leave you around. You know what I’m going to do?”

“What?”

“Sit tight,” he said.

“And wait for it to blow over.”

“Or burn itself out, or something. It shouldn’t take too long. A few days and either they catch the guy or they know he got away from them, and people stop giving a rat’s ass about what’s happening in Des Moines.”

“And then you can come home.”

“I could even do the job, as far as that goes. Or not. Right now it wouldn’t bother me to give the money back.”

“For perhaps the first time in my life,” Dot said, “I feel that way myself. Still, all things being equal—”

“Whatever that means.”

“I’ve often wondered myself. It does get a sentence started, though. All things being equal, I’d just as soon keep the money. And it’s the last job.”

“That’s what we said,” he said, “about the job before this one.”

“I know.”

“But then this one came along.”

“It was a special situation.”

“I know.”

“You know, if it really bothered you, you should have said something.”

“It didn’t really bother me until a few minutes ago,” he said, “when the radio switched from ‘The Girl with Emphysema’ to ‘This Just In.’”

“Ipanema.”

“Huh?”

“‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ Keller.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said ‘The Girl with Emphysema.’”

“Are you sure?”

“Never mind.”

“Because why would I say that?”

“Never mind, for God’s sake.”

“It just doesn’t sound like something I would say.”

“Call it a slip of the ear, Keller, if that makes you happy. We’re both a little rattled, and who can blame us? Go back to your room and wait this out.”

“I will.”

“And if anything comes up—”

“I’ll let you know,” he said.

He closed the phone. He was sitting behind the wheel of the rented Nissan, parked at the first strip mall he’d come to since leaving McCue’s place. His new stamps were in an envelope in one pocket, his tongs in another, and his Scott catalog was on the seat beside him. He was still holding the cell phone, and he had no sooner put it in a pocket than he changed his mind and took it out again. He opened it and was looking for the Redial button when it rang. The caller ID screen was blank, but there was only one person it could be.

He answered it and said, “I was just about to call you.”

“Because you had the same thought I did.”

“I guess so. Either it’s a coincidence—”

“Or it’s not.”

“Right.”

“I have a feeling that thought was in both our minds from the minute we got the news flash.”

“I think you’re right,” he said, “because when it just now came to me it felt like something I’ve known all along.”

“Day to day,” she said, “before Longford made the news, did it feel wrong?”

“It always does.”

“Really?”

“Lately, yeah. That’s one reason I want to pack it in. You remember Indianapolis? The plan there was that they’d kill me once I took out the target. They put a bug on my car so they’d always be able to find me.”

“I remember.”

“If I hadn’t overheard two of them talking—”

“I know.”

“And then the other job for Al, the one in Albuquerque, I was so paranoid I booked three motel rooms under three different names.”

“And didn’t stay in any of them, as I recall.”

“Or anywhere else, either. I did the job and came home. Most of the time everything’s fine, Dot, but I’m gun-shy, and I take so many precautions I trip over them. And then when I start to relax, somebody shoots the governor of Ohio.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Be careful, Keller.”

“I intend to.”

“Lay low as long as you have to, if you’re sure you’re in a safe place. Don’t even think about doing the job for Al, not as long as there’s the slightest chance that this might be a setup.”

“All right.”

“And stay in touch,” she said, and rang off.