Hit Man - Lawrence Block [29]
Cook a meal for the man in White Plains? Buy him a hamburger? Toss him a salad?
“Perhaps you could think of a way to use your particular talents to this man’s benefit instead of his detriment,” Breen went on. He drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his forehead. “Perhaps there is a woman in his life—your mother, symbolically—and perhaps she is a source of great pain to your father. So, instead of making love to her and slaying him, like Oedipus, you might reverse the usual course of things by, uh, showing love to him and, uh, slaying her.”
“Oh,” Keller said.
“Symbolically, that is to say.”
“Symbolically,” Keller said.
A week later Breen handed him a photograph. “This is called the Thematic Apperception Test,” Breen said. “You look at the photograph and make up a story about it.”
“What kind of story?”
“Any kind at all,” Breen said. “This is an exercise in imagination. You look at the subject of the photograph and imagine what sort of woman she is and what she is doing.”
The photo was in color, and showed a rather elegant brunette dressed in tailored clothing. She had a dog on a leash. The dog was medium size, with a chunky body and an alert expression in its eyes. It was that color which dog people call blue, and which everyone else calls gray.
“It’s a woman and a dog,” Keller said.
“Very good.”
Keller took a breath. “The dog can talk,” he said, “but he won’t do it in front of other people. The woman made a fool of herself once when she tried to show him off. Now she knows better. When they’re alone he talks a blue streak, and the son of a bitch has an opinion on everything. He tells her everything from the real cause of the Thirty Years’ War to the best recipe for lasagna.”
“He’s quite a dog,” Breen said.
“Yes, and now the woman doesn’t want other people to know he can talk, because she’s afraid they might take him away from her. In this picture they’re in the park. It looks like Central Park.”
“Or perhaps Washington Square.”
“It could be Washington Square,” Keller agreed. “The woman is crazy about the dog. The dog’s not so sure about the woman.”
“And what do you think about the woman?”
“She’s attractive,” Keller said.
“On the surface,” Breen said. “Underneath it’s another story, believe me. Where do you suppose she lives?”
Keller gave it some thought. “Cleveland,” he said.
“Cleveland? Why Cleveland, for God’s sake?”
“Everybody’s got to be someplace.”
“If I were taking this test,” Breen said, “I’d probably imagine the woman living at the foot of Fifth Avenue, at Washington Square. I’d have her living at number one Fifth Avenue, perhaps because I’m familiar with that particular building. You see, I once lived there.”
“Oh?”
“In a spacious apartment on a high floor. And once a month,” he continued, “I write out an enormous check and mail it to that address, which used to be mine. So it’s only natural that I would have this particular building in mind, especially when I look at this particular photograph.” His eyes met Keller’s. “You have a question, don’t you? Go ahead and ask it.”
“What breed is the dog?”
“The dog?”
“I just wondered,” Keller said.
“As it happens,” Breen said, “it’s an Australian cattle dog. Looks like a mongrel, doesn’t it? Believe me, it doesn’t talk. But why don’t you hang on to that photograph?”
“All right.”
“You’re making really fine progress in therapy,” Breen said. “I want to acknowledge you for the work you’re doing. And I just know you’ll do the right thing.”
A few days later Keller was sitting on a park bench in Washington Square. He folded his newspaper and walked over to a dark-haired woman wearing a blazer and a beret. “Excuse me,” he said, “but isn’t that an Australian cattle dog?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“It’s a handsome animal,” he said. “You don’t see many of them.”
“Most people think he’s a mutt. It’s such an esoteric breed. Do you own one yourself?”
“I did. My ex-wife got custody.”
“How sad