Hit List

Nineteen

“I suppose I should be glad you recognize my voice,” Dot said. “You haven’t heard it much lately, have you?”

“I guess not.”

“I turned a couple of things down,” she said, “because they didn’t smell right. But this one smells as good as morning coffee, and we’re definitely the first ones called, so you won’t have to be looking over your shoulder all the time. So why don’t you get on a train and I’ll tell you all about it?”

“Hold on,” Keller said, and put the phone down. When he picked it up again he said, “Sorry, the water was boiling.”

“I heard it whistling. I’m glad you told me what it was. For a minute there I thought you were having an air raid.”

“No, just a cup of tea.”

“I didn’t know you were that domestic,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a soufflй in the oven, would you?”

“A soufflй?”

“Never mind, Keller. Pour the tea in the sink and come up and see me. I’ll give you all the tea you can drink… Keller? Where’d you go?”

“I’m here,” he said. “This is out of town, right?”

“It’s White Plains,” she said. “Same as always. A scant forty minutes on Metro North. Does it all come back to you now?”

“But the job’s out of town.”

“Well, of course, Keller. I’m not about to book you in the city you call home. We tried that once, remember?”

“I remember,” he said. “The thing is, I can’t leave town.”

“You can’t leave town?”

“Not for a while.”

“What have you got, one of those house-arrest collars on your ankle? It gives you a shock if you leave your property?”

“I have to stay in New York, Dot.”

“You can’t take a train to White Plains?”

“I could do that,” he allowed. “Today, anyway. But I can’t take a job out of town.”

“For a while, you say.”

“Right.”

“How long is a while, anyway? A day? A week? A month?”

“I don’t know.”

“Drink your tea,” she said. “Maybe it’ll perk you up. And then catch the next train, and we’ll talk.”

“I think I figured it out,” she said, “but maybe not. What I decided is there’s a stamp auction that you just can’t miss, some stamp coming up that you need for your collection.”

“Dot, for God’s sake.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s a hobby,” he said. “I wouldn’t pass up work to go to a stamp auction.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Of course not.”

“Even if it was a stamp you needed for your collection?”

“There are thousands of stamps I need for my collection,” he said. “Enough so that I can keep busy without having to go to any particular auction.”

“But if there was one particular stamp you absolutely had to have? But I guess it doesn’t work that way.”

“For some collectors, maybe, but not for me. Anyway, I haven’t been spending that much time with my stamps lately.”

“Oh?”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve lost interest,” he said, “but it sort of ebbs and flows. I subscribe to a couple of magazines and a weekly newspaper, and sometimes I’ll read everything cover to cover, but lately I haven’t even glanced at them. A couple of dealers send me selections on approval, and I keep up with those, but that’s about all I’ve been doing lately. Other dealers send me price lists and auction catalogs and lately I’ve been tossing them out without looking at them.”

“That’s a shame.”

“No,” he said, “it’s more like taking a break from it. I was worried myself, that it was turning out to be a passing fancy, but the astrologer said not to worry.”

“You’ve been to the astrologer again?”

“I call her sometimes, if there’s something that bothers me. She takes a quick look at my chart and tells me if it’s a dangerous time for me, or whatever it was made me call her in the first place.”

“This time it was stamps.”

“And she said my interest would be like the weather.”

“Partly cloudy, with a threat of rain.”

“Hot one day and cold the next,” he said. “Variable, but nothing to worry about. And the nice thing about stamp collecting is you can put it aside for as long as you want and pick it up right where you left off. It’s not like a garden, where you have to keep up with the weeds.”

“I know, they’re worse than the Joneses.”

“Or a virtual aquarium, where the fish die.”

“A virtuous aquarium? As opposed to what, Keller? A sinful one?”

“Virtual,” he said. “A virtual aquarium.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s something you can buy for your computer,” he said. “You install it and the screen looks like a fish tank, with plants and guppies and everything. And you can add other species of fish-“

“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.