Hit Man - Lawrence Block [90]
She put out the cigarette, burying it in the sand. And, moments later, the magazine slipped from her fingers as she dozed off.
Keller gave her a minute. He looked left, then right. There was nobody close by, and he was willing to take his chances with those who were fifty yards or more from the scene. Even if they were looking right at him, they’d never realize what was happening right before their eyes. Especially given the age of most of those eyes.
He came up behind the traitor, clapped a hand over his treacherous mouth, used the thumb and forefinger of his other hand to pinch the man’s nostrils closed, and kept his air shut off while he counted, slowly, to a number that seemed high enough.
When he let go, the traitor’s hand fell to one side. Keller propped it up and left him looking as though asleep, basking like a lizard in the warm embrace of the sun.
“Where’ve you been, Keller? I’ve been calling you for days.”
“I was out of town,” he said.
“Out of town?”
“Florida, actually.”
“Florida? Disney World, by any chance? Do I get to shake the hand that shook the hand of Mickey Mouse?”
“I just wanted a little sun and sand,” he said. “I went to the Gulf Coast. Sanibel Island.”
“Did you bring me a seashell, Keller?”
“A seashell?”
“The shelling is supposed to be spectacular there,” Dot said. “The island sticks out into the Gulf instead of stretching out parallel to the land, the way they’re supposed to.” “ ‘The way they’re supposed to’?”
“Well, the way they usually do. So the tides bring in shells by the carload and people come from all over the world to walk the beach and pick them up. But why am I telling you all this? You’re the one who just got back from the damn place. You didn’t bring me a shell, did you?”
“You have to get up early in the morning for the serious shelling,” Keller said, wondering if it was true. “The shellers are out there at the crack of dawn, like locusts on a field of barley.”
“Barley, huh?”
“Amber waves of grain,” he said. “Anyway, what do I care about shells? I just wanted a break.”
“You missed some work.”
“Oh,” he said.
“It couldn’t wait, and who knew where you were or when you’d be back? You should really call in when you leave town.”
“I didn’t think of it.”
“Well, why would you? You never leave town.
When’s the last time you had a vacation?”
“I’m on vacation most of my life,” he said. “Right here in New York.”
“Then I guess it was about time you went away for something besides work. I suppose you had company.”
“Well . . .”
“Good for you, Keller. It’s just as well I couldn’t reach you. But next time . . .”
“Next time I’ll keep you posted,” he said. “Better than that, next time I’ll bring home a seashell.”
This time he didn’t try to track the story in the papers. Even if Pompano Beach had a newspaper of its own, you couldn’t expect to find it at the UN newsstand. They’d have the Miami Herald there, but somehow he didn’t figure the Herald ran a story every time an old fellow drifted off in the sunshine. If they did, there’d be no room left in the paper for hurricanes and carjackings.
Besides, why did he want to read about it? He had carried out his mission and the traitor was dead. That was all he had to know.
It was almost two months before Bascomb got in touch again. This time there was no face-to-face contact, however fleeting.
Instead, Keller got a phone call. The voice was presumably Bascomb’s, but he couldn’t have sworn to it. The call was brief, and the voice never rose much above a low murmur.
“Stay home tomorrow,” the voice said. “There’ll be something delivered to you.”
And in fact the FedEx guy came around the following morning, bringing a flat cardboard envelope that held a photograph, an index card with a name and address printed on it, and a sheaf of used hundreds.
There were