Hit List

You did what you had to do. Once or twice over the years he’d made the mistake of getting to know someone he’d been hired to take out. There was that fellow in Roseburg, Oregon, set up by the government as a quick printer, secure as could be in the Witness Protection Program. Keller had liked the man, and liked the town, too, and thought about settling down there. But in the end you did what you had to do. You steeled yourself and got the job done.
    He’d forgotten the guy’s name. Both his names, the original one and the new one the feds gave him. Forgot what he looked like, too. Couldn’t picture him.
    Which was fine. The way it ought to be.
    He pictured Louise as he remembered her, sitting in her chair, the bowl of chocolates at her side. But the features were already growing less distinct in his mind, the colors fading toward gray.
    Good.

Twenty-six
----
    Keller put his coffee cup down, and within seconds the busboy filled it up again. He’d been wondering just how long he could sit over one cup of coffee, and it was beginning to look as though the answer was forever. Because they never let the cup get empty, and how could they expect you to leave while you still had coffee in front of you?
    He let the coffee cool and looked out the window. The coffee shop was at the corner of Crosby and Bleecker, and from where Keller sat he could get a glimpse of the entrance to Maggie’s building. Watching it was a little like watching paint dry. No one ever went in or out of it, and hardly anybody even walked past it, as that block of Crosby Street didn’t get much in the way of pedestrian traffic.
    Keller drank a little more coffee, and had his cup filled again, and looked up to see a man emerge from Maggie’s building. He was short and wiry, built like a jockey, and he was wearing a distressed leather jacket and carrying a metal toolbox.
    He carried it to the corner and into the coffee shop, and came right over to Keller’s table. “Piece of pie,” he said.
    “Most people say ‘piece of cake,’ “ Keller said.
    “Huh? Oh, up there? That was a piece of cake, all right, but what I want’s a piece of pie. In fact”—he reached for the menu—“what I want’s a meal. What’s good here?”
    “I’ve never been here before.”
    “Yeah, but you’re here now. What did you have?”
    “Coffee.”
    “That’s all?” He motioned for the waitress, ordered a cheeseburger with fries, and asked what kind of pie they had. It was a tough choice, but he went with Boston cream.
    “Here,” he said, when he’d finished ordering, and put three keys on the table in front of Keller. “This here lets you into the building. Upstairs, what I did was I drilled out both locks and replaced the cylinders. Light-colored key’s for the top lock, dark one’s for the bottom. Turn the top one clockwise, the bottom one counter. Nothing to it, but you’re gonna be disappointed.”
    “Why?”
    “Nothing there to steal. Not that I looked around, I just did what I went there to do, but I couldn’t help notice there’s no furniture. No chairs, no tables, no rug on the floor. Zip, nada, nothing. It’s not like they moved out, because there’s papers pinned to a bulletin board and clothes in the closets. But there’s no furniture. You know anything about these people?”
    “I think he’s an architect.”
    “Oh,” the man said. “Well, why didn’t you say so? They never have furniture. They like space. Place has got space, I’ll say that for it. One big room, fills the whole floor, and there’s not a damn thing in it but space.”
    “There must be a bed,” Keller said.
    “There’s a desk,” the man said. “Built in. Also some bookshelves, also built in. Far as a bed’s concerned, well, you find it, you can sleep in it. Myself, I didn’t happen to see it.”
    “Oh.”
    “Everything’s white,” the man said, “including the floor. Gotta be an architect. Real practical, huh? A white floor in this town?” He put down his cheeseburger, took a forkful of pie, then bit into the cheeseburger again. “I eat everything at once,” he said, a little defensively. “My whole family’s the same way. You’re going in there, right?”
    “How’s that?”
    “The apartment, the loft. The white space. Well, you got access. Light key’s for the top lock, but hey, if you get mixed up, what’s the problem? One key don’t work, try the other.” He picked up a french fry. “Keys are all yours, soon as you pay for