Hit List - Lawrence Block [19]
“But it was only a drunk.”
“It was a warning.”
“A warning?”
He drew a breath. “Maybe it was just a drunk looking for Ralph,” he said, “and maybe it was someone sent to get my attention.”
“Sent,” she said.
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“Sent, like an angel?”
“Dot, I’m not sure I even believe in angels.”
“How can you not believe in them? They’re on television where everybody can see them. My favorite’s the young one with the bad Irish accent. Though she’s probably not as young as she looks. She’s probably a thousand years old.”
“Dot . . .”
“Or whatever that comes to in dog years. You don’t believe in angels? What about the bikers partying upstairs? Angels from Hell, Keller. Pure and simple.”
“Simple,” he said, “but probably not pure. But that’s the whole thing, that’s why they were there.”
“So that you would change your room.”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
“And you changed your room first thing in the morning.”
“To one in front,” he said. “On the second floor.”
“Out of harm’s way. And later on who came along but two people out of a bad country song, and what room did they get?” She hummed the opening bars of the Dragnet theme. “Dum-de-dum-dum. Dum-de-dum-dum-dah! One forty-seven! The death room!”
“All I know,” he said doggedly, “is a couple of hours later they were dead.”
“While you lived to bear witness.”
“I guess it really does sound weird, doesn’t it?”
“Weirder than weird.”
“It made sense on the train.”
“Well, that’s trains for you.”
“What you said earlier, about a reality check?”
“You want my take on it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay,” she said. “Now you have to bear in mind that I don’t know squat about karma or angels or any of that Twilight Zone stuff. You got a bad feeling when the pickup at the airport came off a little raggedy-ass, and then the guy they sent to meet you turned out to be a turkey. And seeing the family photo didn’t help, either.”
“I already said all that.”
“Then the drunk knocked on your door, and you were edgy to begin with, and you reacted the way you did. And your own reaction made you edgier than ever.”
“Exactly how it was.”
“But all he was,” she said, “was a drunk knocking on doors. He probably knocked on every door he came to until he found Ralph. You don’t need angel’s wings to do that.”
“Go on.”
“The noisy party upstairs? Bikers aren’t exactly famous for their silent vigils. A motel’s dumb enough to rent to people like that, they’re going to have some loud parties. Somebody’s got to be downstairs from them, and this time it was you, and as soon as you could you got your room changed.”
“But if I hadn’t—“
“If you hadn’t,” she said, patiently but firmly, “then the loving couple would have wound up in some other room when they decided they couldn’t keep their hands off each other another minute. Not One forty-seven but, oh, I don’t know. Say Two oh eight.”
“But then when the husband turned up—“
“He’d have gone to Two oh eight, Keller, because that’s where they were. He was looking for them, not whatever damn fool happened to be in One forty-seven. He followed them to their room and wreaked his horrible revenge, and it had nothing to do with what room they were in and even less to do with you.”
“Oh,” he said.
“That’s your take on it? ‘Oh?’ “
“I had this whole elaborate theory,” he said, “and it was all crap, wasn’t it?”
“It was certainly out there on the crap side of the spectrum.”
“But you thought it was a coincidence. That was your first thought.”
“No, my first thought was it couldn’t be a coincidence. That it was the client, or somebody the client sent.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No, because the client’s satisfied, and he couldn’t have found you even if he wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean it had to be angels. What it means is it really was a coincidence after all.”
“Oh.”
“And it was a coincidence for everybody in the motel, Keller, not just you. They were all there while the couple in One forty-seven was getting killed.”
“But they hadn’t just checked