Hit List - Lawrence Block [77]
“Well.”
“You were in a hurry,” she said, “because of the way things have been going lately, and because there’s always the shadow of Roger lurking in the wings. On the one hand you’re absolutely right, you did what you were supposed to do, but there’s something else to think about that’s got nothing to do with the client.”
“What’s that?”
“Normally you take your time,” she said. “A couple of days, anyway. Sometimes a week, sometimes longer.”
“So?”
“Why, Keller?”
“Why was I in a hurry? You just told me why I was in a hurry.”
She shook her head. “Why do you take your time? I’ll tell you, Keller, sometimes it’s frustrating for the folks on the home front. You don’t just take your time. You dawdle.”
“I dawdle?”
“You probably don’t, but it seems that way from a distance. And it’s not just because there’s a good place for breakfast, or the motel television set gets HBO. You take your time so you can make sure you do the job right.”
She went on talking and he found himself nodding. He got the point. Because he’d been in such a rush, Murray had seen it coming, had been reaching for a gun when Keller got to him. If the desk drawer had been open to begin with, if Murray had been a little bit faster or Keller a little bit slower . . .
“I’m not saying it’s anything to worry about,” Dot said. “It’s over and you came out of it okay. But you might want to think about it.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said, “whether I want to or not.”
“I suppose you will. Keller?”
“What?”
“You’re fussing with your thumb.”
“I am?”
“The funny one. I forget what you called it.”
“Murderer’s thumb.”
“Rubbing it, hiding it behind your fingers.”
“Just a nervous habit,” he said.
“I suppose twiddling it would be worse. Look, lighten up, huh? Nothing went wrong, you went out and came back the same day, and on an hourly basis I’d say you made out like a bandit.”
“I guess.”
“But?”
“I was thinking about Elwood Murray.”
“Never think about them, Keller.”
“I hardly ever do. Murray, though, he got killed for no reason.”
She was shaking her head. “There’s always a reason,” she said. “He pissed somebody off. Then he straightened it out, but how long would it stay that way? How long before he pissed somebody else off big-time, and somebody picked up a phone?”
“He did look like the kind of guy who would piss people off.”
“There you go,” she said.
Nineteen
* * *
“I suppose I should be glad you recognize my voice,” Dot said. “You haven’t heard it much lately, have you?”
“I guess not.”
“I turned a couple of things down,” she said, “because they didn’t smell right. But this one smells as good as morning coffee, and we’re definitely the first ones called, so you won’t have to be looking over your shoulder all the time. So why don’t you get on a train and I’ll tell you all about it?”
“Hold on,” Keller said, and put the phone down. When he picked it up again he said, “Sorry, the water was boiling.”
“I heard it whistling. I’m glad you told me what it was. For a minute there I thought you were having an air raid.”
“No, just a cup of tea.”
“I didn’t know you were that domestic,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a soufflé in the oven, would you?”
“A soufflé?”
“Never mind, Keller. Pour the tea in the sink and come up and see me. I’ll give you all the tea you can drink. . . . Keller? Where’d you go?”
“I’m here,” he said. “This is out of town, right?”
“It’s White Plains,” she said. “Same as always. A scant forty minutes on Metro North. Does it all come back to you now?”
“But the job’s out of town.”
“Well, of course, Keller. I’m not about to book you in the city you call home. We tried that once, remember?”
“I remember,” he said. “The thing is, I can’t leave town.”
“You can’t leave town?”
“Not for a while.”
“What have you got, one of those house-arrest collars on your ankle? It gives you a shock if you leave your property?”
“I have to stay in New York, Dot.”
“You can’t take a train to White Plains?”
“I could do that,” he allowed. “Today, anyway. But I can’t take a job out of town.”
“For a while, you say.”
“Right.”
“How