Hit List - Lawrence Block [48]
“There was a danger, though.”
“The chart tells you that?”
She nodded solemnly, holding up one hand with the thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “You and Death,” she said, “came this close to one another.”
“That’s how it felt! But—“
“Forget the husband, forget what happened in that room. The woman’s husband was never a threat to you, but someone else was. You were out there where the ice was very thin, John, and that’s a good metaphor, because a skater never realizes the ice is thin until it cracks.”
“But—“
“But it didn’t,” she said. “Whatever endangered you, the danger passed. Then those two people were killed, and that got your attention.”
“Like ice cracking,” he said, “but on another pond. I’ll have to think about this.”
“I’m sure you will.”
He cleared his throat. “Louise? Is it all written in the stars, and do we just walk through it down here on earth?”
“No.”
“You can look at that piece of paper,” he said, “and you can say, ‘Well, you’ll come very close to death on such and such of a day, but you’ll get through it safe and sound.’ “
“Only the first part. ‘You’ll come very close to death’—I could have looked at this and told you that much. But I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that you’d survive. The stars show propensities and dictate probabilities, but the future is never entirely predictable. And we do have free will.”
“If those people hadn’t been killed, and if I’d just gone on home—“
“Yes?”
“Well, I’d be here having this conversation, and you’d tell me what a close shave I’d had, and I’d figure it for just so much starshine. I’d had a feeling, but I would have forgotten all about it. So I’d look at you and say, ‘Yeah, right,’ and turn the page.”
“You can be grateful to the man and woman.”
“And to the guy who shot them, as far as that goes. And to the bikers who made all the noise in the first place. And to Ralph.”
“Who was Ralph?”
“The drunk’s friend, the one he was looking for in all the wrong places. I can be grateful to the drunk, too, except I don’t know his name. But then I don’t know any of their names, except for Ralph.”
“Maybe the names aren’t important.”
“I used to know the name of the man and woman, and of the man who shot them, the husband. I can’t remember them now. You’re right, the names aren’t important.”
“No.”
He looked at her. “The next year . . .”
“Will be dangerous.”
“What do I have to worry about? Should I think twice before I get on an airplane? Put on an extra sweater on windy days? Can you tell me where the threat’s coming from?”
She hesitated, then said, “You have an enemy, John.”
“An enemy?”
“An enemy. There’s someone out there who wants to kill you.”
Eleven
* * *
“I don’t know,” he told Dot.
“You don’t know? Keller, what’s to know? What could be simpler? It’s in Boston, for God’s sake, not on the dark side of the moon. You take a cab to La Guardia, you hop on the Delta Shuttle, you don’t even need a reservation, and half an hour later you’re on the ground at Logan. You take a cab into the city, you do the thing you do best, and you’re on the shuttle again before the day is over, and back in your own apartment in plenty of time for Jay Leno. The money’s right, the client’s strictly blue chip, and the job’s a piece of cake.”
“I understand all that, Dot.”
“But?”
“I don’t know.”
“Keller,” she said, “clearly I’m missing something. Help me out here. What part of ‘I don’t know’ don’t I understand?”
I don’t know, he very nearly answered, but caught himself in time. In high school, a teacher had taken the class to task for those very words. “The way you use it,” she said, “ ‘I don’t know’ is a lie. It’s not what you mean at all. What you mean is ‘I don’t want to say’ or ‘I’m afraid to tell you.’ “
“Hey, Keller,” one of the other boys had called out. “What’s the capital of South Dakota?”
“I’m afraid to tell you,