Hit List

out of the tub. I guess he would have done the same thing on Crosby Street, took a towel and wiped the floor.”
    “He left the tub running.”
    “And what, it overflowed? You couldn’t tell there was a struggle, not if the tub overflowed.”
    “And?”
    “And what else would it do?” He thought about it. “Well, it would make it look as though it happened while the tub was filling. She slipped getting into the tub, knocked herself out, and drowned before she could wake up.”
    “Or drugs. She got in the tub while it was filling and passed out from the drugs she’d taken.”
    “What drugs?”
    “She was an artist, right? Lived in SoHo?”
    “NoHo.”
    “Huh?”
    “SoHo is south of Houston,” he explained. “That’s where the name comes from. Where she lived is a couple blocks north of Houston, so they call it NoHo.”
    “Thanks for the geography lesson, Keller. Look, she just went out to a bar, picked up some stud and partied with him. I’d say there’s a fair chance she provided herself with a little chemical assistance along the way. But it doesn’t matter. We’re getting off-track here. Where’d the water go?”
    “The water?”
    “The water. Where’d it go?”
    “All over the floor,” he said.
    “And then?”
    “Oh.”
    “Right, and the people downstairs banged on her door, and when that didn’t work they called the cops. It’s a way to let the client know the job’s been done. You don’t have to wait for the smell to tip off the neighbors. You should have thought of that in Salt Lake City.”
    “It wasn’t a consideration,” he said. “Besides, it was a house in the suburbs. The tub overflows, the water winds up in the basement.”
    Dot nodded. “Could run for days before anybody noticed.”
    “I suppose.”
    “Waste all that water. Bad enough anywhere, but in Salt Lake City? That’s the desert, isn’t it?”
    “Well,” he said.
    “Right,” she said. “Who cares? All water over the dam, or through the floorboards. How’d we get on this, anyway? Oh, right, you wanted to know how she died.”
    “What I wanted,” he said, “was to kill the man who killed her. And that doesn’t make any sense, Dot. If you look at it in a certain way, I was the person who killed her.”
    “Because if you never got involved with her . . .”
    “It’s more direct than that. I was the client, I ordered the hit on her.”
    “If you want to be technical,” she said, “I was the one who ordered it and set it up.”
    “Maybe deep down I was angry at you,” he said, “and at myself, but that wasn’t how it felt. I sat there in the plane and I hated the guy, Dot. Him and his toupee and his fake mustache and his costume changes. He did just what I’d wanted him to do, what we were paying him to do, and I hated him for it.”
    “I sort of get it,” she said.
    “And the other one, Roger, had given us the slip. We went through all this and Roger slept through it, or whatever he did, and he’s still out there for us to worry about. Maybe he was lurking on Crosby Street when the neighbor called the cops, maybe he saw them bring her body out. I didn’t have a shot at Roger, but I had a shot at this bastard that I hated. So I took it.” He shook his head. “Roger’s home by now, cursing his luck. He doesn’t know I did his dirty work for him.”
    “How’d you do it, Keller?”
    “Followed him to the smoking lounge and stabbed him.”
    “Stabbed him?”
    “I leaned forward so he could light my cigarette, and I had a knife in my hand, and next thing you knew it was in his chest.”
    “A knife.”
    “Right.”
    “How’d you get it through airport security?”
    “It was already there.”
    She looked at him.
    “I had to fly first class,” he said, “and they serve you a real meal there, as if you were in a restaurant. Cloth napkin, china cup and plate, and metal utensils. When I was done eating, I put the knife in my pocket.”
    “You were already planning to do it.”
    “What struck me,” he said, “was this was a way to arm yourself after you had cleared the metal detector. At this point there was still a chance I’d find Roger waiting for us at Jacksonville.”
    “And you could attack him with your butter knife.”
    “It wasn’t a butter knife.”
    “No, it was just the sort of thing Davy Crockett killed a bear with.”
    “It had a serrated edge,” he said. “You could cut meat with it.”
    “My God,” Dot said. “And they let just anybody have these