Hit Man - Lawrence Block [64]
Still, say he had the money, not just to swing the deal but to cover the upkeep as well. Say he won the lottery, say he could afford the gardener and a live-in maid and whatever else you had to have. Would he enjoy it, walking from room to room, admiring the paintings on the walls, luxuriating in the depth of the carpets? Would he like strolling in the garden, listening to the birds, smelling the flowers?
Nelson might like it, he thought. Romping on a lawn like that.
He sat there for a moment, shaking his head. Then he switched chairs and reached for the phone.
He called his own number in New York, got his machine. “You. Have. Six. Messages,” it told him, and played them for him. The first five turned out to be wordless hangups. The sixth was a voice he knew.
“Hey there, E.T. Call home.”
* * *
He made the call from a pay phone a quarter-mile down the highway. Dot answered, and her voice brightened when she recognized his.
“There you are,” she said. “I called and called.”
“There was only the one message.”
“I didn’t want to leave one. I figured I’d tell What’s-her-name.”
“Andria.”
“Right, and she’d pass the word to you when you called in. But she never picked up. She must be walking that dog of yours to the Bronx and back.”
“I guess.”
“So I left a message, and here we are, chatting away like old friends. I don’t suppose you did what you went there to do.”
“It’s not as quick and easy as it might be,” he said. “It’s taking time.”
“Other words, our friend’s still got a pulse.”
“Or else he’s learned to walk around without one.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad to hear it. You know what I think you should do, Keller? I think you should check out of that motel and get on a plane.”
“And come home?”
“Got it in one, Keller, but then you were always quick.”
“The client canceled?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then—”
“Fly home,” she said, “and then catch a train to White Plains, and I’ll pour you a nice glass of iced tea. And I’ll explain all.”
It wasn’t iced tea, it was lemonade. He sat in a wicker chair on the wraparound porch of the big house on Taunton Place sipping a big glass of it. Dot, wearing a blue and white housedress and a pair of white flip-flops, perched on the wooden railing.
“I just got those the day before yesterday,” she said, pointing. “Wind chimes. I was watching QVC and they caught me in a weak moment.”
“It could have been a Pocket Fisherman.”
“It might as well be,” she said, “for all the breeze we’ve been getting. But how do you like this for coincidence, Keller? There you are, off doing a job in Cincinnati, and we get a call, another client with a job just down your street.”
“Down my street?”
“Or up your alley. I think it’s a Briticism, down your street, but we’re in America, so the hell with it. It’s up your alley.”
“If you say so.”
“And you’ll never guess where this second caller lives.”
“Cincinnati,” he said.
“Give the man a cigar.”
He frowned. “So there’s two jobs in the same metropolitan area,” he said. “That would be a reason to do them both in one trip, assuming it was possible. Save airfare, I suppose, if that matters. Save finding a room and settling in. Instead I’m back here with neither job done, which doesn’t make sense. So there’s more to it.”
“Give the man a cigar and light it for him.”
“Puff puff,” Keller said. “The jobs are connected somehow, and I’d better know all about it up front or I might step on my own whatsit.”
“And we wouldn’t want anything to happen to your whatsit.”
“Right. What’s the connection? Same client for both jobs?”
She shook her head.
“Different clients. Same target? Did the fat man manage to piss off two different people to the point