Hit Parade

“I’m here,” she said. “Just taking it all in. I don’t know who the client is, the contract came through a broker, but what I do know is nobody seems to be getting antsy. So why would they hire somebody else? You’re sure this guy’s a hitter? Maybe he’s a big fan, hates to miss a game, follows ’em all over the country.”

“He looks wrong for the part, Dot.”

“Could he be a private eye? Ballplayers cheat on their wives, don’t they?”

“Everybody does, Dot.”

“So some wife hired him, he’s gathering divorce evidence.”

“He looks too shady to be a private eye.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“He doesn’t have that crooked-cop look private eyes have. He looks more like the kind of guy they used to arrest, and he’d bribe them to cut him loose. I think he’s a hired gun, and not one from the A-list, either.”

“Or he wouldn’t look like that.”

“Part of the job description,” he said, “is you have to be able to pass in a crowd. And he’s a real sore thumb.”

“Maybe there’s more than one person who wants our guy dead.”

“Occurred to me.”

“And maybe a second client hired a second hit man. You know, maybe taking your time’s a good idea.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

“Because you could do something and find yourself in a mess because of the heat this ferret-faced joker stirs up. And if he’s there with a job to do, and you stay in the background and let him do it, where’s the harm? We collect no matter who pulls the trigger.”

“So I’ll bide my time.”

“Why not? Drink some of that famous coffee. Get rained on by some of that famous rain. They have any stamp dealers in Seattle, Keller?”

“There must be. I know there’s one in Tacoma.”

“So go see him,” she said. “Buy some stamps. Enjoy yourself.”

“I collect worldwide, 1840 to 1949, and up to 1952 for British Commonwealth.”

“In other words, the classics,” said the dealer, a square-faced man who was wearing a striped tie with a plaid shirt. “The good stuff.”

“But I’ve been thinking of adding a topic. Baseball.”

“Good topic,” the man said. “Most topics, you get bogged down in all these phony Olympics issues every little stamp-crazy country prints up to sell to collectors. Soccer’s even worse, with the World Cup and all. There’s less of that crap with baseball, on account of it’s not an Olympic sport. I mean, what do they know about baseball in Guinea-Bissau?”

“I was at the game last night,” Keller said.

“Mariners win for a change?”

“Beat the Tarpons.”

“About time.”

“Turnbull went two for four.”

“Turnbull. He on the Mariners?”

“He’s the Tarpons’ DH.”

“They brought in the DH,” the man said, “I lost interest in the game. He went two for four, huh? Am I missing something here? Is that significant?”

“Well, I don’t know that it’s significant,” Keller said, “but that puts him just five hits shy of three thousand, and he needs three home runs to reach the four hundred mark.”

“You never know,” the dealer said. “One of these days, St. Vincent-Grenadines may put his picture on a stamp. Well, what do you say? Do you want to see some baseball topicals?”

Keller shook his head. “I’ll have to give it some more thought,” he said, “before I start a whole new collection. How about Turkey? There’s page after page of early issues where I’ve got nothing but spaces.”

“You sit down,” the dealer said, “and we’ll see if we can’t fill some of them for you.”

From Seattle the Tarpons flew to Cleveland for three games at Jacobs Field, then down to Baltimore for four games in three days with the division-leading Orioles. Keller missed the last game against the Mariners and flew to Cleveland ahead of them, getting settled in and buying tickets for all three games. Jacobs Field was one of the new parks and an evident source of pride to the local fans, and the previous year they’d filled the stands more often than not, but this year the Indians weren’t doing as well, and Keller had no trouble getting good seats.

Floyd Turnbull managed only one hit against the Indians, a scratch single in the first game. He went oh-for-three with a walk in game two, and rode the bench in the third game, the only one the Tarpons won. His replacement, a ski

“New kid beat us,” said Keller’s conversational partner du jour. He was a Cleveland fan and assumed Keller was, too. Keller, who’d bought an Indians cap for the series, had encouraged him in this belief. “Wish they’d stick with old Turnbull,” the man went on.

“Close to three thousand hits,” Keller said.

“Lots of hits and homers, but he never seems to beat you like this kid just did. Hits for the record book, not for the game-that’s Floyd for you.”

“Excuse me,” Keller said. “I see somebody I better go say hello to.”

It was the Broadway sharpie, wearing a Panama fedora with a bright red hatband. That made him easy to spot, but even without it he was hard to miss. Keller had picked him out of the crowd back in the third i

She was tall and slender, and she bore herself regally. She was wearing a suit, and at first glance you thought she’d come from the office, and then you decided she probably owned the company. If she belonged at a ballpark at all, it was in the sky boxes, not the general-admission seats.

What were they discussing with such urgency? Whatever it was, they were done talking about it before Keller could get close enough to listen in. They separated and headed off in different directions, and Keller tossed a mental coin and set out after the woman. He already knew where the man was staying, and what name he was using.

He tagged the woman to the Ritz-Carlton, which sort of figured. He’d gotten rid of his Indians cap en route, but he still wasn’t dressed for the lobby of a five-star hotel, not in the khakis and polo shirt that were just fine for Jacobs Field.

Couldn’t be helped. He went in, hoping to spot her in the lobby, but she wasn’t there. Well, he could have a drink at the bar. Unless they had a dress code, he could nurse a beer and maybe keep an eye on the lobby without looking out of place. If she was settled in for the night he was out of luck, but maybe she’d just gone to her room to change, maybe she hadn’t had di

Better than that, as it turned out. He walked into the bar and there she was, all by herself at a corner table, smoking a cigarette in a holder-you didn’t see that much anymore-and drinking what looked like a rust-colored cocktail in a stemmed glass. A manhattan or a Rob Roy, he figured. Something like that. Classy, like the woman herself, and slightly out-of-date.

Keller stopped at the bar for a bottle of Tuborg, carried it to the woman’s table. Her eyes widened briefly at his approach, but otherwise nothing much showed on her face. Keller drew a chair for himself and sat down as if there was no question that he was welcome.

“I’m with the guy,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No names, all right? Straw hat with a red band on it. You were talking to him, what, twenty minutes ago? You want to pretend I’m talking Greek, or do you want to come with me?”

“Where?”

“He needs to see you.”

“But he just saw me!”

“Look, there’s a lot I don’t understand here,” Keller said, not untruthfully. “I’m just an errand boy. He coulda come himself, but is that what you want? To be seen in public in your own hotel with Slansky?”

“Slansky?”