Hit List

goods store. He walked a while without seeing one, and wasn’t sure Newbury Street was the place for it. Antiques, leather goods, designer clothes, Limoges boxes—that was what you bought here, not Polartec sweats and climbing gear.
    Or hunting knives. If you could find such an article here in Back Bay, it would probably have an ivory handle and a sterling silver blade, along with a three-figure price tag. He was sure it would be a beautiful object, and worth every penny, but how would he feel about tossing it down a storm drain when he was done with it?
    Anyway, was it a good idea to buy a hunting knife in the middle of a big city on a rainy spring day in the middle of the week? Deer season was, what, seven or eight months off? How many hunting knives would be sold in Boston today? How many of them would be bought by men in green trench coats?
    In a stationery store he browsed among the desk accessories and picked out a letter opener with a sturdy chrome-plated steel blade and an inlaid onyx handle. The salesgirl put it in a gift box without asking. It evidently didn’t occur to her that anyone might buy an item like that for himself.
    And in a sense Keller hadn’t. He’d bought it for Alvin Thurnauer, and now it was time to deliver it.
    That was the subject’s name, Alvin Thurnauer, and Keller had seen a photograph of a big, outdoorsy guy with a full head of light brown hair. Along with the photo, the client had supplied an address on Exeter Street and a set of keys, one for the front door and one for the second-floor apartment where Thurnauer and his girlfriend would be playing Thank God It’s Wednesday.
    Thurnauer generally showed up around two, Dot had told him, and Keller was planted in a doorway across the street by half past one. The air was a little colder in Boston, and the wind a little stiffer, but the rain was about the same as it had been in New York. Keller’s coat was waterproof, and his umbrella had not yet been blown inside-out, but he still didn’t stay a hundred percent dry. You couldn’t, not when the rain came at you like God was pitching sidearm.
    Maybe that was the risk. On a fateful day, you stood in the rain in Boston and caught your death of cold.
    He toughed it out, and shortly before two a cab pulled up and a man got out, bundled up anonymously enough in a hat and coat, neither of them green. Keller’s heart quickened. It could have been Thurnauer—it could have been anybody—and the fellow did stand looking across at the right house for a long moment before turning and heading off down the street. Keller gave up watching him when he got a couple of houses away. He retreated into the shadows, waiting for Thurnauer.
    Who showed up right on time. Two on the button on Keller’s watch, and there was the man himself, easy to spot as he got out of his cab because he wasn’t wearing a hat. The mop of brown hair was a perfect field mark, identifiable at a glance.
    Do it now?
    It was doable. Just because he had keys didn’t mean he had to use them. He could dart across the street and catch up with Thurnauer before the man had the front door open. Do him on the spot, shove him into the vestibule where the whole world wouldn’t see him, and be out of sight himself in seconds.
    That way he wouldn’t have to worry about the girlfriend. But there might be other witnesses, people passing on the street, some moody citizen staring out the window at the rain. And he’d be awfully visible racing across the street in his green coat. And the letter opener was still in its box, so he’d have to use his hands.
    And by the time he’d weighed all these considerations the moment had passed and Thurnauer was inside the house.
    Just as well. If a roll in the hay was going to cost Thurnauer his life, let him at least have a chance to enjoy it. That was better than rushing in and doing a slapdash job. Thurnauer could have an extra thirty or forty minutes of life, and Keller could get out of the goddam rain and have a cup of coffee.
    At the lunch counter, feeling only a little like one of the lonely guys in his Edward Hopper poster, Keller remembered that he hadn’t eaten all day. He’d somehow missed breakfast, which was unusual for him.
    Well, it was a high-risk day, wasn’t it? Pneumonia, starvation—there were a lot of hazards out there.
    Eating would have to wait. He didn’t have the time, and he never liked to work on a full stomach. It made you sluggish, slowed your reflexes, spoiled