Hit List

that bad and not let on?’ “
    “And so on.”
    “But none of that’s important. The important thing is to get it done and get away clean.”
    “And you did, and that’s why you’re so happy.”
    “You know what it is, Dot? I knew something was wrong.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I sensed something. I had a feeling. When I get off the plane, when I can’t read the first sign, when I go through a song and dance with the moron who meets me. And later on some drunk turns up at my door and I grab the gun and I’m ready to start blasting away through the door. And it’s just some poor slob who can’t find the right room. He staggers off and never comes back, and I have to lie down and wait for my heart to quit doing the tango.”
    “And then the bikers.”
    “And then the bikers, and toilet paper in my ears, and the kids with the basketball. Everything was out of synch, and it felt worse than that, it felt dangerous.”
    “Like you were in danger?”
    “Uh-huh. But I wasn’t. It was the room.”
    “The room?”
    “Room One forty-seven. Something bad was scheduled to take place there. And I sensed it.”
    She gave him a look.
    “Dot, I know how it sounds.”
    “You don’t,” she said. “Or you wouldn’t have said it.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t say it to anybody but you. Remember that girl I was seeing a while ago?”
    “As far as I know, you haven’t been seeing anybody since Andria.”
    “That’s the one.”
    “The dog walker, the one with all the earrings.”
    “She used to talk about karma,” he said, “and energy, and vibrations, and things like that. I didn’t always understand what she was saying.”
    “Thank God for that.”
    “But I think sometimes a person senses things.”
    “And you sensed something was wrong.”
    “And that something was going to happen.”
    “Keller, something always happens.”
    “Something violent.”
    “When you take a business trip,” she said, “something violent is par for the course.”
    “You know what I mean, Dot.”
    “You had a premonition.”
    “I guess that’s what it was.”
    “You checked into a room and just got the feeling that somebody was going to get killed there.”
    “Not exactly, because the room felt fine to me.”
    “So?”
    He looked away for a moment. “I went over all this in my mind,” he said. “Last night, and again coming up here on the train today. And it made sense, but now it’s not coming out right.”
    “That’s what they call a reality check, Keller. Keep going.”
    “I sensed something bad coming,” he said, “and I was somehow drawn to the place where it was going to happen.”
    “Like a moth to a flame.”
    “I picked the motel, Dot. I looked at the map, I said here’s where I am, here’s where he lives, here’s the airport, here’s the interstate, and there ought to be a motel right here. And I drove right to it and there it was and I asked for a ground-floor room in the rear. I asked for it!”
    “ ‘Give me the death room,’ you said. ‘I’m a man. I can take it.’ “
    “And I panicked when the drunk came knocking, because I knew I was in a dangerous place, even if I didn’t know I knew it. That’s why I grabbed the gun, that’s why I reacted the way I did.”
    “But it was only a drunk.”
    “It was a warning.”
    “A warning?”
    He drew a breath. “Maybe it was just a drunk looking for Ralph,” he said, “and maybe it was someone sent to get my attention.”
    “Sent,” she said.
    “I know it sounds crazy.”
    “Sent, like an angel?”
    “Dot, I’m not sure I even believe in angels.”
    “How can you not believe in them? They’re on television where everybody can see them. My favorite’s the young one with the bad Irish accent. Though she’s probably not as young as she looks. She’s probably a thousand years old.”
    “Dot . . .”
    “Or whatever that comes to in dog years. You don’t believe in angels? What about the bikers partying upstairs? Angels from Hell, Keller. Pure and simple.”
    “Simple,” he said, “but probably not pure. But that’s the whole thing, that’s why they were there.”
    “So that you would change your room.”
    “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
    “And you changed your room first thing in the morning.”
    “To one in front,” he said. “On the second floor.”
    “Out of harm’s way. And later on who came along but two people out of a bad country song, and what room did they get?” She hummed the opening bars of