Hit List

pro.”
    “Maybe.”
    “And it got him killed.”
    He sat there for a while. She went on talking, going over it, and he let the words wash over him without taking in everything she was saying. He’d avenged Maggie, which had seemed important at the time, for reasons that made no sense at all now. He tried to picture her, and realized that her image was already fading, getting smaller, losing color and definition. Fading into the past, fading the way everything faded.
    And Roger was gone. He’d been looking over his shoulder for months, stalked by a faceless killer, and now that threat had been removed. And he’d done it himself. He hadn’t known that was what he was doing, but he’d done it anyway.
    “If I’d done the right thing,” he said, “he would have gotten away.”
    “Roger.”
    “Uh-huh. I’d have turned around and gone home, convinced that Roger wasn’t going to show. And I’d have been letting the real Roger off the hook, and we wouldn’t know anything more about him. Not his name or where he lived. We wouldn’t know any of those things.”
    “We still don’t,” she pointed out.
    “But now we don’t need to.”
    “No.”
    “The broker who found Allenby for us says we owe the balance.”
    “What did he get, half in advance?”
    “And the rest due on completion, and the guy’s point is the job was completed. Woman’s dead and it goes in the books as an accident, so we should be satisfied, right? If Allenby gets pangs of conscience afterward and decides to kill himself, well, what does that have to do with us? He offed himself without blowing the Crosby Street hit, so we got what we ordered.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I wasn’t about to explain what really happened.”
    “No, of course not.”
    “He thought I had booked this on behalf of a client, and that the client should pay. And I told him I agreed, but on the other hand we both knew the money wasn’t going to Allenby, because Allenby wasn’t alive to collect it.”
    “The broker would keep it.”
    “Of course. So I said, ‘Look, your guy killed himself, and that’s a shame because he did good work.’ “
    “All he did was stand in a doorway.”
    “Let me finish, will you? ‘He did good work,’ I said, ‘but he’s dead, and you’re not gonna pay him, and I’m not gonna give my client a refund. So what do you say we split it?’ And I sent him half of the half we owed.”
    “That sounds fair.”
    “I’m not sure fairness has anything to do with it, but I could live with it and so could he. Keller, we’re out of the woods. The loose ends are tied off and Roger’s dead and gone. You take all that in yet?”
    “Just about.”
    “You did the absolute right thing,” she said, “for the wrong reason. That’s a whole lot better than the other way around.”
    “I guess so.”
    “It wasn’t that girl, you know. That’s not why you wanted to kill him. That’s what you told yourself, but that wasn’t it.”
    “It wasn’t?”
    “No. Be honest, Keller. You don’t care about her, do you?”
    “Not now.”
    “You never did.”
    “Maybe not.”
    “You sensed something about that guy. You didn’t know he was Roger, you really thought he was our guy, but you picked up some vibration. And you didn’t like him.”
    “I hated the bastard.”
    “And how do you feel about him now?”
    “Now?” He thought about it. “He’s gone,” he said. “There’s nothing to feel.”
    “Same as always, right?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “Maybe it’s your thumb.”
    “Huh?”
    “Your murderer’s thumb, Keller. Maybe it gives you good instincts, or maybe it’s just good luck. Either way, I think you should keep it.”
    He looked at his thumb. When he’d first become aware of its special quality, he’d gotten so he didn’t like to look at it. It had looked weird to him.
    Now it looked just right. Not like everybody else’s thumb, maybe. Not even like his other thumb, for that matter. But it looked as though it belonged on his hand. It looked right for him.
    “You buy some stamps in Jacksonville, Keller?”
    “Some.”
    “Paste them in your album yet?”
    “You don’t paste them,” he said. “You’d ruin them if you pasted them.”
    “You told me once what it is you do. You mount them, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Like you’d mount a horse,” she said, “except different. Did you mount these yet?”
    “No, I didn’t have a chance.”
    “So you’ve got stamps waiting to be mounted. And