Hit List

Twenty-five

“The old man,” he said.

“Sometimes it amazes me how quick you are on the uptake.”

“But that was you, Dot. He was losing it, and he was talking about hiring a kid to help him write his memoirs, and you sent me off somewhere and did it yourself.”

“Sent you to Kansas City,” she said. “Your first stamp auction, if I remember correctly.”

“And you did Louise, too? Why, for God’s sake?”

“Short notice,” she said. “There was a window of opportunity, and who knew how long it would be open? And it wasn’t just a matter of taking her out. It had to be quiet, so you wouldn’t read about it. And somebody had to go through her files, somebody who would know what to look for. So I called her up and made another appointment.”

“With him it was a sleeping pill in his cocoa and a pillow over the face.”

“I didn’t figure that would work with her. I thought maybe hit her over the head, make it look like a break-in that went bad.”

“Makes sense.”

“You get cops that way, but they start out looking for burglars, or if they smell a rat they take a good long look at her personal life. Still, who wants them looking at all?”

“You never know what they’ll find.”

“So I sat there, pretending to be fascinated by all of this astrological crap, all of it in a voice so sweet and gentle it could lull you to sleep, with a pause now and then so she can pop another of those chocolates. ‘Those look good,’ I said, and she held out the plate for me to take one.”

“Oh.”

“I took a couple,” she said, “and I ate one, and I have to say it wasn’t bad, but I’d hate to stuff myself with that crap all day long. I managed to drop the other one in my handbag. End of the session I made another appointment, and when I kept it I was prepared. ‘Those look good,’ I said, and when she passed the plate I made like the Great Spaldini, master of sleight of hand.”

“You put back the chocolate you took the time before.”

“And took a fresh one for myself, all in a single movement faster than the eye could follow. I practiced in front of a mirror, Keller. You want to feel ridiculous, that’s as good a way as any.”

“You’d have to be careful not to wind up with the same one you started with.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’d be a hard mistake to make,” he said. “I mean, you’re picking up a fresh one at the same time you’re planting the one you brought along. But then, when it’s time to pop the thing in your mouth, you start to wonder.”

“A mind is a terrible thing to have,” she said. “I knew I hadn’t screwed up, and even so I took a good look at the bottom of the one I wound up with, looking for the telltale pinprick.”

“You used a hypodermic needle.”

She nodded. “I don’t know why I didn’t just palm the chocolate and get rid of it,” she said, “but somehow I felt compelled to eat it. I didn’t see a pinhole on the bottom, so of course I decided it had sealed itself in the course of being handled. So I told myself, the hell, either it’s in the stars or it isn’t, and I ate the chocolate.”

“Thinking it might be poisoned.”

“Knowing it wasn’t, but yes, thinking it might be. And wouldn’t you know it had a nut in it, and I was sure I was tasting bitter almonds.”

“You used cyanide.”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “I didn’t, I used something else, it’s got a chemical name a mile long, and who even knows what the hell it tastes like? Not bitter almonds, I’ll be willing to bet, but that’s what I decided I was tasting, and, well, you can imagine what went through my mind.”

“All while you’re pretending to enjoy the chocolate.”

“Smacking my lips over it. ‘Oh, Louise, these are so good.’ Which is just brilliant, because of course she offers me another. ‘No, I don’t dare,’ I said, and truer words were never spoken. So I sat there and waited for her to pick the candy with the prize in it.”

“Couldn’t you just go home?”

“And wait for nature to take its course? No, because I had to search the place, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“And I also had to hear all about my boyfriend and how Jupiter trined Pluto in his twenty-second house.”

“I think there are only twelve houses.”

“There used to be, but then the developers came in.”

“I never understood that part, the houses. Anyway, what boyfriend?”

“The one I made up. A handsome widower who had taken an interest in me. Keller, I had to have some reason to go see her again. I made up a boyfriend and made up a birthday for him, and she was doing his chart and seeing if it was compatible with mine.”

“And was it?”

“We were going to have problems, and it wouldn’t work out in the long run, but she felt it was worth pursuing for the time being. Of course he didn’t exist and she had the wrong birthday for me, but other than that it was right on the money.” She rolled her eyes. “And I’m pretending to listen to all this crap, and what I’m doing is waiting for her to pop a chocolate. But she’s too caught up in what she’s telling me, and when she finally stops to catch her breath and actually does take a piece of candy, it’s the wrong one. Which I don’t know, of course, until she bites into it and nothing happens.”

“Jesus.”

“What’s interesting,” she said, “is the way my mind worked. You know, I started out feeling sort of bad about the whole thing. She was a nice woman, and she was trying to help me out, and it was a shame what I had to do. But then, when she keeps not picking the right chocolate…”

“You got angry with her.”

“That’s right! She was making my life difficult, she was refusing to cooperate, she was not doing what she was supposed to do. Does that happen with you?”

“All the time. Like it’s their fault that they’re hard to kill.”

“I wanted to yell at her. ‘Eat the chocolate, you fat slob!’ But I just sat there, and I got to a point where I almost forgot about it, and then she took a piece of candy and bit into it, and bingo.”

“And?”

“It was worse than the other time. She made these sounds, got this expression on her face. Thrashed her arms around, flopped all over the place. There was a moment there when I would have stopped it if I could. But of course I couldn’t.”

“No.”

“And then she stopped flopping and gave a long sigh and it was over. And then I didn’t feel anything, not really, because what was the point? She was dead. She didn’t feel anything and neither did I.”

“You must have wanted to get out of there.”

“Of course, but I had things to do. First I waited to make sure she was dead, and then I went on an expedition. I found a file with your name on it. It had what I guess was your chart, and some notes I couldn’t make head or tail out of. I found my file, too, under the name I’d given her. I took them both and got rid of them.”

“Good.”

“I went through her appointment book. This was my third appointment, so I was in there three times. Just a name, Helen Brown, with no address and no phone number, and nothing in her files, so I left it. It wasn’t going to lead anywhere. You were in there, but so many months ago I couldn’t believe anybody would check that far back. Still, I inked out your name with Magic Marker, but then I decided they’d have ways to see what was originally written there, so I just tore out the page.”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“I had a quick look-see through her things. That felt weird, so I didn’t spend much time on it. I found some cash in her underwear drawer, a few thousand dollars.”

“You take it?”

“I thought about it. I mean, money doesn’t care where it came from, right? But what I did was leave all but five hundred right where I found it, and I put the five hundred in her handbag.”

“So it wouldn’t look like a break-in.”

“Right. But that doesn’t really make sense, because what burglar slips his victim a poisoned chocolate? I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

“If you got away with it,” he said, “your thinking was clear enough.”

“I guess so. I left her there and went home. I thought, should I call it in? But the people at 911 have got Caller ID, they know where all the calls come from.”

“Besides, what’s your hurry?”

“That’s what I decided. The longer it takes before the body’s found, the less likely they are to smell a rat.”

“Bad choice of words.”

“Bad choice of… oh, right. Anyway, the stuff I gave her winds up looking like a heart attack. It actually gives you one, that’s how it works. Of course it would show up if they looked for it, but why would they look for it? She was a good fifty pounds overweight, she led a sedentary life, she was old enough to have a heart attack-“

“How old do you have to be? Never mind, I know what you mean.”

“I wore gloves all the time, like a nice little suburban lady, so there were no fingerprints to worry about. And I left and pulled the door shut, and it locked behind me, and I went home.”

“Steeped in the satisfaction of a job well done.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “I got home and poured myself a stiff drink, and then I poured it down the sink, because what do I want with a drink?”

“You were never a drinker.”

“No, but this time I had the impulse anyway, which shows how I felt. I sat there and watched her die, Keller. I never did anything like that before.”

“It was different with the old man.”

“Apples and bananas. He didn’t kick his feet and throw his arms around and make noises. He was asleep, and I just made sure he wouldn’t wake up. And you know what he was like. It was an act of mercy.” She made a face. “With the star lady, it was no act of mercy. The picture in my mind, the expression on her face, mercy had nothing to do with it.”

“It’ll fade, Dot.”

“Huh?”

“The picture in your mind. It won’t go away, but it’ll fade, and that’s enough.”

“Keller, I’m a big girl. I can live with it.”

“I know, but you can live without it, too. It’ll fade, believe me, and you can make it fade faster. There’s an exercise you can do.”

“I just hope it’s not deep knee bends.”

“No, it’s all mental. Close your eyes. I’m serious, Dot. Close your eyes.”

“So?”

“Now let the picture come into your mind. Louise in her overstuffed chair-“

“Looking overstuffed herself.”

“No, don’t make jokes. Just let yourself picture the scene.”

“All right.”

“And you’re seeing it from up close, and in color.”

“I didn’t have much choice, Keller. I was there, I wasn’t watching it on a black-and-white TV set.”

“Let the color fade.”

“Huh?”

“Let the color drain out of the picture in your mind. Like you’re dialing down the color knob on a TV.”

“How do I-“

“Just do it.”

“Like the shoe ads.”

“Is the color gone?”

“Not completely. But it’s muted. Ooops-it came back.”

“Fade it again.”

“Okay.”

“Closer to gray this time, right?”

“A little bit.”

“Good,” he said. “Now back off.”

“Huh?”

“Like a zoom shot,” he said, “except it’s more of a reverse zoom shot, because the picture in your mind is getting smaller. Back off twenty yards or so.”

“There’s a wall behind me.”

“No there’s not. You’ve got all the room in the world, and the picture’s getting smaller and smaller, with less and less color in it.”

They were both silent for a moment, and then she opened her eyes. “That was weird,” she said.

“Whenever the picture comes into your mind,” he said, “just take a minute or two and do what you just did. You’ll reach a point where, when you try to picture that scene, it’ll be in black and white. You won’t be able to see it in color, or up close.”

“And that takes the sting out of it, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“That what you do, Keller?”

“It’s what I used to do,” he said. “Early on.”

“What happened? It stopped working?”

He shook his head. “I got so I didn’t need to do it anymore.”

“You toughened up, huh?”

“I don’t know if that was it,” he said. “I think it’s more a matter of getting used to it, or maybe the exercise had long-term effects. Whatever it was, it got so the pictures didn’t bother me much. And they tended to fade all by themselves. The color would wash out, and they would get smaller and smaller, until you couldn’t make out the details.”

The other loose end turned out to be Maggie.

He’d pretty much figured that out by himself. There was a moment, when Dot was recounting her visit to Louise’s apartment, that it struck him that he, Keller, was the loose end, the string which if tugged would lead back to the big house in White Plains. He was reaching for his glass of iced tea when the thought came to him, and he put the glass down, as if it might hold the same substance as Louise’s final piece of chocolate.

But that was ridiculous, he’d already drunk half the tea in his glass, and they were both drinking from the same pitcher. Besides, the whole notion was senseless. If Dot wanted to get rid of him she wouldn’t do it in her own house, and she wouldn’t preface it with a conversation anything like this one.

No, he knew who the other loose end had to be.

“But she doesn’t know anything,” he told Dot. “She’s convinced I’m a corporate guy, retired now, working once in a while on a freelance basis. She thinks I fly off to Silicon Valley now and then and help them crunch numbers.”

“She’s the one who sent you to the star lady.”

“Yes, but-“

“In fact, she’s the one who told you about your murderous thumb.”

“But we stopped seeing each other. She’s not in my life anymore.”

“When’s the last time you talked with her?”

“The time before last,” he said, “was months ago, and-“

“That’s not what I asked you, Keller.”

“Yesterday,” he said, “but that’s because I called her. Because I was trying to find Louise, and I thought Maggie might know if she’d moved.”

“But she didn’t.”

“She told me I didn’t need an astrologer to know which way the stars were falling.”

“What was that supposed to mean?”

“I think all it meant was she was angry with me. She broke up with me, and she was angry that I hadn’t called her.”

“Makes sense.”

“There was a call two months ago,” he remembered. “I picked it up and said hello a couple of times, and the person hung up.”

“Wrong number, most likely.”

“It didn’t feel like a wrong number,” he said, “so I hit Star-six-nine, and she picked up the phone and said hello a couple of times, and this time I didn’t answer.”

“Gave her a taste of her own medicine.”

“Well, I couldn’t think what to say. I just hung up, and the phone rang-“

“Her turn, I guess.”

“-and I let it ring, and that was the end of it. But she couldn’t have been referring to that. It was something more recent, and messages she’d left for me, except she didn’t.”

“Except she did, Keller.”

“Huh?”

“Well, this is embarrassing,” she said. “When you go out of town, sometimes I check your messages.”

“What?”

“Only since Roger came into our lives. I was worried about you, Keller. I have these protective Mother Hen instincts. So one evening when there was nothing good on television I called your number.”

“And I wasn’t there.”

“Of course not, you were in Albuquerque or something. The machine picked up and I heard your recorded voice.”

“And you got all misty-eyed.”

“Yeah, right. I left a message, something about hoping you were having a good time, and then I decided it was stupid to be leaving messages for you. So I called back and erased it.”

“How?”

“How? I called back, and the machine picked up, and I punched in the code, and when I heard my own message I pressed three and erased it.”

“How’d you know the code?”

“When you buy the machine,” she said, “the code is five-five-five, and they tell you how you can change it.”

“And I did.”

“To four-four-four, Keller.”

“Well,” he said.

“It wasn’t the first one I tried,” she said, “but it didn’t take me long to get to it. I erased the message I’d left, and while I was at it I erased a message from some jerk who wanted to sell you a time-share in the Bahamas.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I got in the habit of invading your privacy. When you were out of town, I checked your messages for you.”

“One time I checked,” he remembered, “and there was some kind of nuisance message, not a time-share but about as inviting, and I didn’t bother to erase it. And then when I got home it wasn’t there.”

“It must have been one of the ones I erased. I figured I’d spare you the aggravation.”

“And there were messages from Maggie?”

“ ‘Hi, it’s me. I was just thinking of you. Don’t bother to call back.’ If you weren’t supposed to call back, what did you need to hear it for?” She reached for her glass of tea. “That was the first one. And there were one or two others in the same vein over the months. Then when you were in Baltimore she left three or four messages, including one along the lines of ‘I know you’re there and you’re not answering the phone and please don’t pick up now because it would just make it obvious what a neurotic bastard you are.’ Then a long pause, during which I guess you were supposed to pick it up, and then she called you a name and hung up.”

“What kind of a name?”

“All I remember is it wasn’t a compliment. Then an apology, and a request that you call. And another saying ignore the preceding message. I figured you’d better ignore them all, and I made them go away.”

“And this was when I was in Baltimore.”

“And while you were on jury duty.”

“You called during the day, while I was on jury duty.”

“A couple of times.”

“Just a couple of times?”

“Well, daily, actually. At this point I was just checking for messages from her, and most of the time there weren’t any, but I didn’t want you hearing from her, or talking to her.”

“You’d already decided she was a loose end.”

“Well, it was getting obvious, Keller.”

“Bait,” he said.

“We’d have to take her out anyway, you know. I don’t think it’s something you want to do yourself, or am I wrong?”

“I went to bed with the woman,” he said.

“And sent her flowers, if I remember correctly.”

“I liked her, Dot. She had an interesting way of seeing things.”

“The ones you pick,” she said, “always have an interesting way of seeing things.”

“The ones I pick?”

“This one,” she said, “and the dog walker one with all the earrings. Call me judgmental, but I think we’d be safe classing them both as kooks.”

“Maybe.”

“ ‘Let’s keep this superficial, so don’t send me any more flowers, and we’ll just meet a couple of times a month and go to bed.’ “

“ ‘And by the way, you’ve got a murderer’s thumb.’ “

“Any more superficial, Keller, and she’d have had you stay home altogether and just send her a monthly teaspoon of sperm. I have to say she did you a favor, keeping you at a distance. It might be harder on you otherwise, closing the account.”

“Bait,” he said.

“The word seems to bother you. Call it sushi, if you like that better. It amounts to the same thing.”

“I guess I’ll get used to the idea.”

“Or look at it this way,” she said. “She’s the lemon fate handed you. And what you’re doing, you’re making lemonade.”

Back at his apartment, the first thing Keller did was check his answering machine. He pressed the Play button, and the robotic voice said, “You. Have. No. Messages.”

And what did that mean? That no one had left a message? Or that, while he was on his way home, Dot had called and wiped the machine clean?

The first thing to do, he thought, was change his number, and to something less obvious than four-four-four. Like what? He ran three-number combinations through his head, trying to find one that was clunkier and less memorable than the others. Three-eight-one? Two-nine-four? Any number, he decided, displayed special qualities if you thought about it long enough. And, if he managed to find one that was genuinely unremarkable, one a person just couldn’t hold in his mind, then how would he remember it himself?

Besides, Dot could dig it out by trying numbers at random. How many combinations were there, anyway? He seemed to remember from high school math that there was a formula for this sort of thing, but, like most of high school math, it had long since found its way out of his memory bank.

He sat down at his desk, picked up a pencil and realized you didn’t need a formula. The numbers started at zero-zero-zero and ran to nine-nine-nine. A thousand combinations, that’s how many there were. Ten times ten times ten, that was the formula, if formulas were important to you. It sounded like a lot, a thousand, but when you thought about it you realized it wasn’t so much after all.

Years ago he’d done a job for the old man that involved a briefcase. He hadn’t thought of it in years, but he remembered now that the briefcase had been locked, not with a key but with a three-number code, one of those triple dials where you had to line up the numbers correctly to get the case open. He’d used a pair of pruning shears instead, cutting right through the leather flap, but it struck him now, years and years later, that he could have opened the case without ruining it. It would have taken more time, but it wouldn’t have taken forever.

More like two hours, he realized. Maybe even less than that. If you were systematic about it, you could easily try ten or fifteen combinations a minute. Ten a minute was a hundred minutes, and what did that amount to? An hour and forty minutes?

The pruning shears had taken no time at all. Of course it had taken him a while to find the shears, and before that he’d sawed at the flap ineffectually with a kitchen knife. But that was beside the point. A thousand combinations wouldn’t take long, not with a briefcase lock and not with a telephone answering machine, either. You’d dial the number and let the machine pick up, and then you’d punch in as many of your three-number codes as you could in the thirty seconds or so that the message played. Then you’d call back and do it again. You might make a lot of calls, but so what? You wouldn’t be leaving any messages. And, even if you did, sooner or later you’d get the right combination. And then you’d have a chance to erase them.

So changing his combination wouldn’t help. And how would Dot feel if she called up and punched in four-four-four and nothing happened? It would be a slap in the face, and not a very effective one, either, because she could run the combinations until she cracked the code.

Of course he could tell her ahead of time. “I realized anybody could do what you did and get my messages,” he could say, “so I changed the number.” She’d say it was a good idea. And, if she asked what the new number was, he’d say something about it being so unmemorable he couldn’t remember it himself. “But I’ve got it written down,” he’d say, and let it go at that.

And, if she wanted to, she’d get the new number. However you looked at it, he couldn’t keep her out of his answering machine. Unless…

Well, he could change his phone number. Get a new number, an unlisted one. With seven digits, well, that added up to ten million combinations, and it would take forever and cost a fortune, because you’d get nine million wrong numbers while you were at it.

But if he got a new number, there wouldn’t be any messages to protect. Because no one would be able to call him. Including Dot, who was his most frequent caller in the first place.

Maybe he should just leave everything the way it was. Dot had probably been right to check his machine, just as she’d been right to check out the astrologer. He’d liked Louise, she was a nice woman, but if she was going to turn into Chatty Cathy the minute somebody mentioned a murderer’s thumb, well, that made her a definite loose end.

And Dot had snipped her off.

Imagine that. Dot, coming down on the train, wearing gloves and a little flowered hat. She hadn’t mentioned a hat, and it was hard to picture her in a hat, but it sort of fit. Gloves and a hat, and a poisoned chocolate in her handbag. And tidying up afterward, and going home.

Jesus.

Suppose she hadn’t done it. Suppose she’d told him, and left him with the task of cleaning up the potential mess he’d made. Could he have taken care of Louise?

Probably. You did what you had to do. Once or twice over the years he’d made the mistake of getting to know someone he’d been hired to take out. There was that fellow in Roseburg, Oregon, set up by the government as a quick printer, secure as could be in the Witness Protection Program. Keller had liked the man, and liked the town, too, and thought about settling down there. But in the end you did what you had to do. You steeled yourself and got the job done.

He’d forgotten the guy’s name. Both his names, the original one and the new one the feds gave him. Forgot what he looked like, too. Couldn’t picture him.

Which was fine. The way it ought to be.

He pictured Louise as he remembered her, sitting in her chair, the bowl of chocolates at her side. But the features were already growing less distinct in his mind, the colors fading toward gray.

Good.