Hit List

Twenty-six

Keller put his coffee cup down, and within seconds the busboy filled it up again. He’d been wondering just how long he could sit over one cup of coffee, and it was beginning to look as though the answer was forever. Because they never let the cup get empty, and how could they expect you to leave while you still had coffee in front of you?

He let the coffee cool and looked out the window. The coffee shop was at the corner of Crosby and Bleecker, and from where Keller sat he could get a glimpse of the entrance to Maggie’s building. Watching it was a little like watching paint dry. No one ever went in or out of it, and hardly anybody even walked past it, as that block of Crosby Street didn’t get much in the way of pedestrian traffic.

Keller drank a little more coffee, and had his cup filled again, and looked up to see a man emerge from Maggie’s building. He was short and wiry, built like a jockey, and he was wearing a distressed leather jacket and carrying a metal toolbox.

He carried it to the corner and into the coffee shop, and came right over to Keller’s table. “Piece of pie,” he said.

“Most people say ‘piece of cake,’ “ Keller said.

“Huh? Oh, up there? That was a piece of cake, all right, but what I want’s a piece of pie. In fact”-he reached for the menu-“what I want’s a meal. What’s good here?”

“I’ve never been here before.”

“Yeah, but you’re here now. What did you have?”

“Coffee.”

“That’s all?” He motioned for the waitress, ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and asked what kind of pie they had. It was a tough choice, but he went with Boston cream.

“Here,” he said, when he’d finished ordering, and put three keys on the table in front of Keller. “This here lets you into the building. Upstairs, what I did was I drilled out both locks and replaced the cylinders. Light-colored key’s for the top lock, dark one’s for the bottom. Turn the top one clockwise, the bottom one counter. Nothing to it, but you’re gonna be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“Nothing there to steal. Not that I looked around, I just did what I went there to do, but I couldn’t help notice there’s no furniture. No chairs, no tables, no rug on the floor. Zip, nada, nothing. It’s not like they moved out, because there’s papers pinned to a bulletin board and clothes in the closets. But there’s no furniture. You know anything about these people?”

“I think he’s an architect.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Well, why didn’t you say so? They never have furniture. They like space. Place has got space, I’ll say that for it. One big room, fills the whole floor, and there’s not a damn thing in it but space.”

“There must be a bed,” Keller said.

“There’s a desk,” the man said. “Built in. Also some bookshelves, also built in. Far as a bed’s concerned, well, you find it, you can sleep in it. Myself, I didn’t happen to see it.”

“Oh.”

“Everything’s white,” the man said, “including the floor. Gotta be an architect. Real practical, huh? A white floor in this town?” He put down his cheeseburger, took a forkful of pie, then bit into the cheeseburger again. “I eat everything at once,” he said, a little defensively. “My whole family’s the same way. You’re going in there, right?”

“How’s that?”

“The apartment, the loft. The white space. Well, you got access. Light key’s for the top lock, but hey, if you get mixed up, what’s the problem? One key don’t work, try the other.” He picked up a french fry. “Keys are all yours, soon as you pay for ’em.”

“Oh, right,” Keller said. He passed the man an envelope, and the little locksmith put down his fork long enough to lift the flap and count the bills it contained.

“I always count,” he said, “in case it’s too much or too little. The count’s off about a third of the time, my experience, and what percentage of the time do you figure it’s in my favor?”

“Hardly ever.”

“Bingo,” the man said. “This time the count’s right, and thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome,” Keller said, picking up the keys. “And thanks for helping me out.”

“What I do,” the man said. “I’m a locksmith, licensed and bonded and on call around the clock. People lose their keys, I let ’ em in. They never had keys in the first place, well, it costs a little more.” He grinned. “You’re in a hurry, and no reason for you to stick around until I’m done. I might try that pecan pie, see if it’s as good as the Boston cream. You go ahead, and the check’s on me. The hell, all you had was coffee. Don’t forget, the bright key’s for the top lock.”

“And I turn it clockwise.”

“Whatever.” He grabbed a french fry. “You want some advice? Wear sunglasses.”

It was a small commercial building converted to residential use, with an artist’s loft taking up each of its five stories. The sculptor on the ground floor lived with his wife in Park Slope, and, according to Maggie, used his space on Crosby Street only for work. “He makes these massive hulking statues,” she had told him, “humanoid, but just barely, and they weigh a ton, so it’s good he’s on the ground floor. It takes him forever to finish a piece, but he never sells anything, so it doesn’t matter.”

“He never sells anything?”

“I was a painter for years,” she’d said, “and I never sold anything. You don’t have to sell to be an artist. In fact it’s probably easier if you don’t.”

There was a painter on the third floor, another painter on the fourth. Keller didn’t know what their work looked like, or if they ever sold any of it. He knew that Maggie occupied the top floor, and that the architect on the second floor was somewhere in Europe and wouldn’t be back for months.

Keller used the new keys, opened the new locks, and stepped into an enormous white room. The floor was white, as the locksmith had told him, and so were the walls and the ceiling, along with the built-in desk and the built-in bookshelves. There were windows at either end of the loft. The ones at the rear were painted white, glass and all, while the ones in the front were out of sight behind white shutters.

With the track lighting on, the whiteness of the room was enough to give you a headache. Keller turned the lights off, and the room was plunged into darkness. He tried opening one of the shutters a few inches, letting in a little daylight, and that was better.

There was furniture, he discovered, although he could see how the locksmith had missed it. White cubes, some of them topped with white cushions, served as chairs, and a big white box on one wall held a Murphy bed. Some of the cube chairs were permanently installed, but others were movable, and he carried one over to the front window, cushion and all, and sat on it.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Dot said, “but the books on the shelves are white, too. They didn’t start out that way, but somebody took white shelf paper and made individual covers for them.”

“I know.”

“You could lose your color vision around here. Between the ding-a-ling upstairs who only wears black, and this fruitcake with everything white. You want to switch? I’ll watch the street for a while.”

“There’s somebody across the street,” he said.

“Where?” She joined him at the window, squinted through the space between the shutters. “Oh, there he is. In the doorway, with the windbreaker and the cap.”

“I spotted him a few minutes ago. He’s just standing there.”

“Well, he can’t be waiting for a bus, or hoping to flag a cruising taxi. He’s waiting for somebody. Have you got the binoculars?”

“I thought you had them.”

“Here they are. He could look up and spot light glinting off them, if there was any light to glint. I can’t really make out his face. Here, you look.”

He peered through the binoculars, adjusted the focus. The man’s face was in shadow, and indistinct.

“Well, Keller? Is that the guy you saw in Boston?”

“I never really got a good look at him,” he said, “and I don’t even know if the guy I saw was the guy who tried to kill me.”

“And killed your raincoat by mistake.”

“But this guy’s here for a reason,” he said. “He’s either Roger or he’s not.”

“That’s true of everybody, Keller.”

“You know what I mean. He’s here to do a job upstairs, or he’s here to do a job on the guy who does.”

Whoever he was, he was right there on the opposite side of a narrow street. If he had a gun, Keller thought, he could shoot the son of a bitch, and then they could go across the street and take a closer look at him.

“There’s somebody else,” he said. “See?”

“Where?”

“Walking down from the corner.”

“Just a man walking,” she said, “but that’s rare enough on this street, isn’t it? How about this guy, Keller. Does he look familiar?”

Keller tracked him with the binoculars. This one wasn’t in shadows, but he wore a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat and a muffler and glasses, and about all you could say for sure was that he didn’t have a mustache. He was on the tall side, but then so was the lurker, the guy in the doorway.

“He’s turning around,” he said. “I think he’s looking for an address.”

“And look who’s coming.”

“What, in the doorway? He hasn’t moved.”

“Coming down the street, Keller. Is that who I think it is? Dressed all in black, surprise surprise?”

It was Maggie, on her way home. She was coming from the left, and the guy with the hat and muffler was coming from the right, and the guy in the windbreaker and cap was across the street, lurking.

“This is handy,” Dot said. “Everybody on stage at the same time. You want to go downstairs and handle the introductions, Keller?”

“He’s crossing the street,” he said. “He’s walking right toward her.”

“He’s still in the doorway. Oh, the hat and muffler. You think he’s going to do it here and now?”

“How? It’s supposed to look like an accident.”

“Maybe he’ll throw her in front of a truck. There should be a garbage truck coming through sometime after midnight. Maybe he just wants a close look at her. No, he’s stopping her.”

Keller had the impulse to shout a warning. He wouldn’t do that, but what was he supposed to do, just sit there and watch the woman get killed?

“They’re talking,” Dot said, her own voice reduced to a whisper. “If the window was open we could hear them.”

“Don’t open it now.”

“No. From this angle all I can see is the tops of their heads, and they’re both wearing hats.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s a friend of hers.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe she’ll take him upstairs. Maybe she’ll do that even if he’s a stranger. That’d make it easy for him, and then Roger’ll be waiting across the street when he comes out. Ooops, false alarm.”

Maggie was entering the building. And the man in the hat had drawn away from her and was crossing the street, moving to the right, away from the man in the doorway. He walked fifteen or twenty yards to another darkened building and stood at the door.

“He was asking directions,” Dot explained. “And she pointed him over there, and that’s where he’s going. See? He’s waiting for somebody to buzz him in. And somebody just did, and there he goes.”

“And the lurker, the guy in the cap? He’s not in the doorway.”

“That’s him two doors down,” she said. “Heading to the corner. The coffee shop’s still open. Maybe he’s hungry.”

“The locksmith seemed to like the Boston cream pie.”

“I wouldn’t mind a piece myself,” she said. “This watching and waiting takes a lot out of you.”

Around midnight, Dot took her suitcase into the bathroom and emerged wearing a flannel robe and slippers. She had trouble with the Murphy bed, but stopped Keller when he rose to give her a hand. “Wait until I take over for you,” she said. “We want a pair of eyes at that window all the time.”

“There’s nothing happening out there.”

“And how long would it take for someone to cross the street and pop into the building? Okay, now you can get the bed down.”

He knew she was right. That was the whole point of her joining him, so that at least one of them would be watching at all times. They could take turns sleeping, and one could go on watching while the other went out for sandwiches and coffee, or for a closer look at whoever was lurking in the neighborhood.

It was good, too, to have company. That had felt odd at first, because he was on a job, and he never had anyone with him when he was working. But this was a little different anyway, because his work was rarely this passive a process. There was often a fair amount of waiting involved, but you generally knew who you were waiting for, and you got to pick the time when waiting stopped and action commenced. If you were going to spend an indeterminate period of time just sitting at a window, peering through an inch-wide gap between the shutters, it didn’t hurt to have someone to talk to.

She got into bed. Earlier she’d found a lamp-white, of course, with a white shade-but now she turned it out, and the sole illumination was what light came through the half-open bathroom door. “The minute you get tired,” she said, “you wake me, and I’ll take a turn.”

While she slept, he kept an eye on the street scene. It was hard to keep his mind on what he was doing. When you stared long enough, waiting for something to change in your field of vision, and nothing did, well, your mind tended to wander. Keller, willing himself to maintain his vigil, thought of those sentries in wartime who were punished for falling asleep on duty. Like it was their choice.

Maybe it was to motivate them, he thought. Maybe the threat of execution helped them fight off fatigue. It seemed to him, though, that the best way to doze off was to struggle to stay awake. Sitting in front of the television set, staring drowsily at afternoon football, the harder he worked to stay alert, the more certain he was to drift off. His mind would slip away on some tangential thought, and the next thing he knew the Giants were trying to squeeze in a play before the two-minute warning.

This was different. His eyes stayed open without much effort on his part. But one thought would lead to another, and it was hard to pay any real attention to what was happening outside the window. Especially in view of the fact that nothing was happening. The guy in the windbreaker and cap had disappeared, and the guy with the hat and muffler had never returned, and what was the point?

They’d made a mistake early on, he realized. When Dot let out the contract, she should have specified that the job had to be done during normal business hours. Monday to Friday, nine to five. All concerned-their hitter, Roger, and Keller himself-could have the rest of the time off.

As it was, they were stuck. Not the hitter-he could return to his hotel room whenever he wanted, or kill a few hours at a movie. That was one of the nice things about the business, you could pretty much write your own schedule. There was plenty to do in New York, and time to do it. If the guy wanted to see Cats, say, that was up to him.

Not so for Roger, who had to be on call twenty-four hours a day. And not so for Keller, who had to be able to identify both men, and then had to be Johnny-on-the-spot when the hit happened, sitting on the hitter’s shoulder and waiting for Roger to make his move.

A car appeared at the far end of Crosby Street. It traversed the block without speeding up or slowing down, then turned at the corner and disappeared from view. Across the street, a cigarette glowed in an upstairs window.

Whoopee.

After a few hours he thought about waking Dot, but couldn’t figure out how to do it without deserting his post. He didn’t want to shout, and was reluctant to take his eyes off the street. Around four-thirty she woke up on her own and told him to go to bed, for God’s sake. She didn’t have to tell him twice.

“The guy over there,” Dot said. “Standing over by the garbage cans, eating the sandwich.”

“I think it’s a hot dog.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, Keller. It makes all the difference. Is he the guy with the hat and the muffler?”

“He’s not wearing a hat.”

“Or a muffler,” she said. “Or a long coat, as far as that goes. But could it be the same guy?”

“The one who approached Maggie and asked for directions.”

“And then he went across the street and into that building,” she said, “and now he’s two doors away, eating not just any sandwich but a hot dog. Same guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s helpful.”

“That was the night before last,” he said, “and he was all bundled up.”

“Hat, coat, and muffler.”

“The best view I got of him was the top of his head. The top of his hat, actually. And the rest of the time all I could see of him was what showed between his hat and his muffler.”

“I think it’s the same man, Keller.”

“The man I saw,” he went on, “was clean-shaven. In fact that was just about the only thing I could tell you about him. He was white, and he didn’t have a mustache. This one’s got a mustache.”

“Give me the glasses, Keller.”

“You didn’t see the mustache?”

“I saw the mustache. I just want a closer look at it, that’s all. These aren’t the greatest binoculars in the world, are they?”

“They’re not the worst, either.”

“No. It’s a hot dog, all right, and it’s probably not the best hot dog in the world, either, judging by how long it’s taking him to eat it. That mustache could be a fake.”

“So could the hot dog.”

“Huh? Oh, you were making a joke. Aren’t you clever. I think it’s a fake mustache, Keller.”

“Why would he have a fake mustache?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he grew it,” he said, “in the time we’ve been cooped up here.”

“Maybe he’s a master of disguise. He’s done with the hot dog, believe it or not. I wonder if he’s going to light a cigarette.”

“Why would he do that?”

“That’s what smokers do. Don’t ask me why. Most of the people who stand around outside, they’re smokers who aren’t allowed to smoke in their offices. He’s not lighting a cigarette.”

“Or a pipe,” Keller said.

“He’s going into that building. The one he went into the other night.”

“Back before he grew a mustache.”

“Or pasted it on.”

“The man the other night had somebody buzz him in. This fellow used a key.”

“So?”

“So what is it exactly that they’ve got in common? The lack of an umbrella?”

“They’ve got the same walk,” she said.

“They do?”

“It looks the same to me.”

“Left, right, left, right…”

“Watch the window, Keller. Four flights up, second from the left.”

“I’m watching it.”

“See if a light goes on in the next five minutes.”

He sat, waiting. The window stayed dark.

“Amazing,” he said. “Can you believe it? The light didn’t go on. The dark window stayed dark. You called that one, all right.”

“He’s sitting there in the dark.”

“Maybe daylight’s enough for him.”

“If he put the light on,” she said, “we could see him.”

“See him doing what?”

“Sitting in the window. At this angle, with no light behind him, we can’t see him.”

“Dot,” he said, “what makes you think he’s there?”

“He’s there.”

“Why that window?”

“Because that’s where he was last night and the night before.”

“With the light on?”

“No, sitting in the dark.”

“Then how could you-“

“Smoking,” she said.

He thought about it. “A cigarette glowing,” he said.

“Right.”

“I noticed it once or twice. The night before last, I remember noticing it then. And maybe last night, too.”

“I saw it on and off, both nights.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“You were sleeping, Keller.”

“And I guess you were sleeping when I noticed it. It’s not much to notice. If I’d had someone to talk to, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. There! Somebody just lit a cigarette.”

“Him.”

“It’s always that window?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So he’s a guy who lives there,” he said, “and he has trouble sleeping, and he sits by the window a lot.”

“And smokes.”

“It’s his apartment. Or loft, or office, or whatever it is. He wants to smoke, it’s his business.”

“And it’s his face,” she said, “so he can paste a mustache on it anytime he wants to.”

“If it’s the same man,” he said, “and he just happens to live there, I guess he’d either have a mustache or he wouldn’t.”

“My point exactly, Keller.”

“He could have one and shave it off. But he couldn’t not have one, and then two days later there it is.” He frowned. “If it’s the same man.”

“Let’s assume he is.”

“Okay.”

“He’s got to be one of them.”

“Our guy or Roger.”

“Right.”

“It would help,” he said, “if we knew which.”

“We just wait, and-“

“And see what happens,” he said. “That’s what we’ve been doing. And nothing happens.”

“Well, if you’ve got a better idea… Isn’t that your girlfriend?”

“Maggie? Where?”

“Right there.”

“It’s her. How’d she get over there?”

She was on the other side of the street, walking away. He waited for someone to leap out of an alleyway and strangle her, but nobody did.

“She must have left the building,” Dot said, “while we were watching the glowing cigarette across the street. What’s she got, a backpack? Maybe she’s going away for the weekend.”

“That’s all we need.”

“She’s at the corner. She’s hailing a cab. Where do you suppose she’s going?”

“Read her lips, see what she tells the driver.”

“Is Mr. Mustache still at the window? I don’t see the telltale glow of his cigarette. No, I take it back. There it is. He’s there, so he probably saw her leave.”

“So did we,” he said. “So what?”

“So he’s not going to follow her. What about the other one?”

The man in the cap and windbreaker had been back intermittently, and Keller had spotted him that morning in the coffee shop on the corner. He’d stopped by to pick up breakfast for the two of them, and there was the guy, perched on a stool at the counter, tucking into a plate of salami and eggs.

“Salami and eggs,” Keller said. “I haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

“Maybe he decided to catch a movie.”

“Or maybe he’s sitting in some other window, without a glowing cigarette to give him away. You don’t think she really left for the weekend, do you?”

“Who knows?”

“The guy with the mustache has to be part of the game,” he said. “How else do you explain the mustache? I mean, now you see it, now you don’t.”

“Either he’s neurotic in a new and interesting way,” Dot said, “or he’s a player. Besides, didn’t he stop your girlfriend on the street to ask directions? And she pointed him to the building?”

“If he was legit, he’d know where he lives.”

“He wanted a close look at her,” she said. “Wanted a chance to size her up.”

“Why?”

“To lock in on the target, I guess. Don’t you do that? Confirm the subject’s identity before you close the sale?”

“I’d just as soon do it from a distance,” he said. “You get up close, talk to them, it complicates things.”

“You start thinking you know them.”

“And you don’t know them,” he said, “not really. The only reason they’re in your life is because there’s a contract in your pocket with their name on it. It’s the job that brought the two of you together, and in the end you have to bite the bullet and do the job.”

“But it’s easier if you keep your distance.”

“I’d say so,” he said, “but maybe this guy’s wired differently. Maybe he likes the idea of talking to her, knowing all along he’s going to take her out.”

“Sick,” Dot said.

“Well, mental health’s not necessarily part of the job description.”

“No.”

“And who says he’s the one who’s going to take her out? Maybe he’s Roger, and the other guy’s going to hit her.”

“The windbreaker.”

“That makes him sound like he’s got gas,” he said. “One of them’s Roger and one’s our hitter. I wish we knew which was which.”

“If only,” Dot said.

“Simplify things, wouldn’t it? Instead of waiting around, I could just go ahead and take him out. With Roger down and out, we could call off the other guy, and everybody could go home.”

“We couldn’t call off our guy, Keller. He’s still got a job to do, because your girlfriend’s still a loose end.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Maybe you could stop calling her my girlfriend.”

“Sorry.”

“Just to keep it simple, you know?”

“It won’t happen again.”

“And it’d still be good if we knew which was which, because I could deal with Roger and we could clear out. And the other guy could do what he came here to do, and we wouldn’t have to sit around and watch him get ready to do it.”

“Uh-huh. Have you got a hunch?”

“As to which is which? I’ve got two hunches, and I’m pretty sure one of them is right.”

“Narrows it down.”

“On the one hand,” he said, “the guy with the mustache is Roger, and that’s why he’s at the window all the time, puffing away on a Marlboro Light. Because why else would he need an observation post? If he’s just there to fulfill a contract, all he needs to do is a little reconnaissance. But if he’s Roger, waiting to hit the hitter, he’s got to spot the other guy and know when the hit goes down.”

“Makes sense.”

“On the other hand,” he said, “what’s with the mustache? Why does he need to change his appearance?”

“To keep from being recognized.”

“Who’s going to recognize him, Dot? Maggie? She saw him once, when he stopped her on the street, but she never has to see him again. The other hitter? The other hitter doesn’t know anything about Roger. He’s here to do a job and he’s got no reason to think it’s going to be complicated.”

“On the one hand he’s Roger,” she said, “and on the other hand he’s not.”

“There you go,” he said.

“I had this thought,” he said.

“Care to share it?”

“I could just do them both, you know? Instead of waiting, because we could sit here forever. She’s out, and God knows when she’s coming back, and nobody can do anything until she does. Unless our hitter tailed her, but he wouldn’t do that, would he?”

“Two things I told him,” she said. “It has to be in her loft and it has to look like an accident.”

“So it won’t happen until she comes back, but what do we need her for? I go across the street and up four flights and take out the guy with the mustache. Then I come down and hit a few doorways until I bump into the guy with the windbreaker, and I do him.”

“Kill ’em both and let God sort ’em out.”

“We might never know which was which,” he said, “but what difference would it make? The thing is, I’d be killing an innocent man.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The guy you hired. He comes to New York to do a job and gets killed by the people who hired him.”

“He’s here to kill a girl, Keller. Don’t you think it’s a stretch to call him innocent?”

“You know what I mean. I’d be killing him for no reason.”

“Suppose someone hired you to kill him.”

“Then I’d have a reason.”

“But this way you don’t.”

“Not in the same way, no. But it’s a waste of time talking about it. I mean, who even knows for sure that it’s narrowed down to those two guys? Maybe somebody else is Roger, somebody we haven’t even noticed yet.”

“It’s possible.”

“So it’d be nuts, taking them both out. Anyway, it was just a thought.”

“Keller, I had the same thought.”

“Really?”

“And the same objections, plus an extra. We’d still have that dame to worry about. Your girlfriend, and I’m sorry, I was going to stop calling her that.”

“Well,” he said.

“I suppose we could burn that bridge when we came to it,” she said, “but I think what we’ve got to do is stick with the original plan. I just wish I’d realized there was going to be so much waiting involved. I’d have set it up differently.”