Hit List

he’d since decided was conveyed by that see-through skin of hers. She was actually a whining, sniping, carping nag of a woman, and about as fragile as an army boot.
    So, when she stepped out of the bathroom, he took her from behind and broke her neck. He left her where she fell, just as he’d left Thurnauer on the bedroom floor. You could try to set a scene, make it look as though she had stabbed him and then broke her neck in a fall, but it would never fool anybody, so why bother? The client had merely stipulated that the man be dead, and that’s what Keller had delivered.
    It was sort of a shame about the girl, but it wasn’t all that much of a shame. She was no Mother Teresa. And you couldn’t let sentiment get in the way. That was always a bad idea, and especially on a high-risk day.
    There were good restaurants in Boston, and Keller thought about going to Locke-Ober’s, say, and treating himself to a really good meal. But the timing was wrong. It was just after three, too late for lunch and too early for dinner. If he went someplace decent they would just stare at him.
    He could kill a couple of hours. He hadn’t brought his catalog, so there was no point making the rounds of the stamp shops, but he could see a movie, or go to a museum. It couldn’t be that hard to find a way to get through an afternoon, not in a city like Boston, for God’s sake.
    On a nicer day he’d have been happy enough just walking around Back Bay or Beacon Hill. Boston was a good city for walking, not as good as New York, but better than most cities. With the rain still coming down, though, walking was no pleasure, and cabs were hard to come by.
    Keller, back on Newbury Street, walked until he found an upscale coffee shop that looked okay. It wasn’t going to remind anybody of Locke-Ober, but it was here and they would serve him now, and he was too hungry to wait.
    The waitress wanted to know what the problem was. “It’s my coat,” Keller told her.
    “What happened to your coat?”
    “Well, that’s the problem,” he said. “I hung it on the hook over there, and it’s gone.”
    “You sure it’s not there?”
    “Positive.”
    “Because coats tend to look alike, and there’s coats hanging there, and—“
    “Mine is green.”
    “Green green? Or more like an olive green?”
    What difference did it make? There were three coats over there, all of them shades of beige, none at all like his. “The salesman called it olive,” he said, “but it was pretty green. And it’s not here.”
    “Are you sure you had it when you came in?”
    Keller pointed at the window. “It’s been like that all day,” he said. “What kind of an idiot would go out without a coat?”
    “Maybe you left it somewhere else.”
    Was it possible? He’d shucked the coat in the Exeter Street living room. Could he have left it there?
    No, not a chance. He remembered putting it on, remembered opening his umbrella when he hit the street, remembered hanging both coat and umbrella on the peg before he slid into the booth and reached for the menu. And where was the umbrella? Gone, just like the coat.
    “I didn’t leave it anywhere else,” he said firmly. “I was wearing the coat when I came in, and I hung it up right there, and it’s not there now. And neither is my umbrella.”
    “Somebody must of taken it by mistake.”
    “How? It’s green.”
    “Maybe they’re color-blind,” she suggested. “Or they got a green coat at home, and they forgot they were wearing the tan one today, so they took yours by mistake. When they bring it back—“
    “Nobody’s going to bring it back. Somebody stole my coat.”
    “Why would anybody steal a coat?”
    “Probably because he didn’t have a coat of his own,” Keller said patiently, “and it’s pouring out there, and he didn’t want to get wet any more than I do. The three coats on the wall belong to your three other customers, and I’m not going to steal a coat from one of them, and the guy who stole my coat’s not going to bring it back, so what am I supposed to do?”
    “We’re not responsible,” she said, and pointed to a sign that agreed with her. Keller wasn’t convinced the sign was enough to get the restaurant off the hook, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t about to sue them.
    “If you want me to call the police so you can report it . . .”
    “I just want to get out of here,” he said. “I need a cab, but I could drown out there waiting for an empty one to come