Hit Man

A couple of hours later he called Dot in White Plains. “Guy’s forty pounds overweight and here I just saw him tuck into a porterhouse the size of a manhole cover,” he said. “Put half a shaker of salt on it first. How much of a rush are these people in? Because they shouldn’t have to wait too long before a stroke or a coronary closes the account.”

“There’s no cause like a natural cause,” Dot said. “But you know what they say about time, Keller.”

“It’s of the essence?”

“Yabba dabba do,” Dot said.

The next day Dinsmore and his bodyguard had the same table at the same restaurant. This time a third man accompanied them. He looked to be a business associate of Dinsmore’s. Keller couldn’t overhear the conversation, he was seated a little farther away this time, but he could see that Dinsmore and the third man were doing the talking, while the bodyguard divided his attention between the food on his plate and the other diners in the room. Keller had brought a newspaper along and managed to have his eyes on it when the bodyguard glanced his way.

At one point Dinsmore got to his feet, and Keller’s pulse quickened. Before he could react, the bodyguard was also standing, and both men walked off to the men’s room. Keller stayed where he was and ate his spaghetti carbonara.

He was watching out of the corner of his eye when the two men returned to their table. The bodyguard took a moment to scan the room, while Dinsmore sat down at once and shook some more salt onto his half-eaten steak.

Almost without thinking, Keller reached out and let his hand close around his own salt cellar. It was made of glass, and fit his fist like a roll of nickels. If he were to hit someone now, the salt cellar would lend considerable authority to the blow.

Damn thing was lethal.

That night Keller had a couple of drinks after di

He wasn’t drunk enough to expect the dog to answer. But it seemed to him that this was a way to make a minimal sort of contact. The phone would ring. The dog would hear it ring. While he could not be expected to recognize it as his master’s voice, Keller would have reached out and touched him, as they said in the phone company ads.

No, of course it didn’t make sense. Dialing the number, he knew it didn’t make sense. But it wouldn’t cost anything, and there wouldn’t be a record of the call, so what harm could it do?

The line was busy.

His first reaction-and it was extremely brief, just momentary-was one of jealous paranoia. The dog was on the phone with someone else, and they were talking about Keller.

The thought came and went in an instant, leaving Keller to shake his head in wonder at the mysteries of his own mind. A flood of other explanations came to him, each of them far more probable than that first thought.

Nelson could have lurched into the end table on which the phone sat, knocking it off the hook. Andria, using the phone before or after their walk, could have replaced the receiver incorrectly. Or, most probably, the long-distance circuits were overloaded, and any call to New York would be rewarded with a busy signal.

A few minutes later he tried again and got a busy signal again.

He walked back and forth, fighting the impulse to call the operator and have her check the line. Eventually he picked up the phone and tried the number a third time, and this time it rang. He let it ring four times, and as it rang he imagined the dog’s reaction-the ears pricking up, the alert gleam in the eyes.

“Good boy, Nelson,” he said aloud. “I’ll be home soon.”

The next day, Friday, he spent the morning in his motel room. Around eleven he called the restaurant in the Old Market. Dinsmore had arrived at the restaurant at 12:30 on both of his previous visits. Keller booked a table for one at 12:15.

He arrived on time and ordered a cranberry juice spritzer. He looked across at Dinsmore’s table, now set for two. If this went well, he thought, he could be home in time to take Nelson for a walk before bedtime.

At 12:30, Dinsmore’s table remained empty. Ten minutes later a pair of businesswomen were seated at it. Keller ate his food without tasting it, drank a cup of coffee, paid the check, and left.

Saturday he went to a movie. Sunday he went to another movie and walked around the Old Market district. Sunday night he sat in his room and looked at the phone. He had already called home twice, letting the phone ring, trying to tell himself he was establishing some kind of psychic contact with his dog. He hadn’t had anything to drink and he knew what he was doing didn’t make any sense, but he’d gone ahead and done it anyhow.

He reached for the phone, started to dial a different number, then caught himself and left the room. He made the call from a pay phone, dialing Andria ’s beeper number, punching in the pay phone number after the tone sounded. He didn’t know if it would work, didn’t know if her beeper would receive more than a seven-number signal, didn’t know if she’d be inclined to return a long-distance call. And she might be walking a dog, Nelson or some other client’s, and did he really want to stand next to this phone for an hour waiting for her to call back? He couldn’t call from his room, because then her call would have to come through the switchboard, and she wouldn’t know whom to ask for. Even if she guessed it was him, the name Keller would mean nothing to the motel switchboard, and it was a name he didn’t want anyone in Omaha to hear, anyway. So-

The phone rang almost immediately. He grabbed it and said hello, and she said, “Mr. Keller?”

“ Andria,” he said, and then couldn’t think what to say next. He asked about the dog and she assured him that the dog was fine.

“But I think he misses you,” she said. “He’ll be glad when you’re home.”

“So will I,” Keller said. “That’s why I called. I had hoped to be back the day before yesterday, but things are taking longer than I thought. I’ll be a few more days, maybe longer.”

“No problem.”

“Well, just so you know,” he said. “Listen, I appreciate your calling me back. I may call again if this drags on. I’ll reimburse you for the call.”

“You’re already paying for this one,” she said. “I’m calling from your apartment. I hope that’s all right?”

“Of course,” he said. “But-”

“See, I was here when the beeper went off, and I figured who else would be calling me from out of town? So I figured it would be all right to use your phone, since it was probably you I’d be calling.”

“Sure.”

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’ve been spending a lot of time here. It’s nice and quiet, and Nelson seems to like the company. His ears pricked up just now when I said his name. I think he knows who I’m talking to. Do you want to say hello to him?”

“Well-”

Feeling like an idiot, he said hello to the dog and told him he was a good boy and that he’d see him soon. “He got all excited,” Andria assured him. “He didn’t bark, he hardly ever barks-”

“It’s the dingo in him.”

“-but he did a lot of panting and pawing the floor. He misses you. We’re doing fine here, me and Nelson, but he’ll be glad to see you.”

Keller got to the restaurant at 12:15 Monday. The hostess recognized him and led him directly to the same table he’d had Friday. He looked over at Dinsmore’s table and saw that it was set for four, and that there was aRESERVED card on it.

At 12:30, two men in suits were seated at Dinsmore’s table. Keller didn’t recognize either of them, and began to despair of his entire plan. Then Dinsmore arrived, accompanied by the wrestler.

Keller watched them while he ate his meal. Three men, drinking their drinks and wolfing their steaks, talking heartily, gesturing volubly. While the fourth man, the bodyguard, sat like a coiled spring.