Hit List

forward like a predatory animal. Klinger didn’t even have time to freeze in his tracks, let alone try to get away. The car hit him in mid-stride, sending him and his briefcase flying. Keller had barely registered what was happening before it was over. Klinger never knew what hit him.
    “Okay,” Dot said. “I give up. How’d you do it?”
    “All I did,” he said, “was watch it, and I barely did that. I was following him, but I knew where he was going, so I didn’t have to pay close attention.”
    “That fucking Roger,” Dot said. “He’s changed his approach. Instead of hitting the hitter, he beats you to the punch.”
    “It couldn’t have been Roger. Rogeretta, maybe.”
    “It was a woman?”
    “A little old lady. She was doing something like sixty miles an hour at the moment of impact. Car was an Olds, last year’s model, a big sedan.”
    “Not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
    “She said there was something wrong with the car. She stepped on the brake, but all it did was go faster.”
    “Definitely not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
    “It happens a lot,” Keller said, “with all kinds of cars. The driver steps on the brake and the car speeds up instead of slowing down. The one common denominator is the driver’s always getting along in years.”
    “And I don’t suppose it’s really the brake.”
    “They get confused,” he said, “and they think they’re stepping on the brake pedal, and it’s the accelerator. So they panic and step down harder, to force the brakes to work, and the car goes faster, and, well, you see where it’s going.”
    “Straight into Klinger.”
    “She took her foot off the gas,” he said, “to stop for the light, and her car slowed down, and Klinger started across, and then she stepped on what was supposed to be the brake pedal. And the rest is history.”
    “And so is Klinger,” Dot said. “And you were right there.”
    “I saw it happen,” he said. “I have to tell you, it gave me a turn.”
    “You, Keller?”
    “I saw a man die.”
    She gave him a look. “Keller,” she said, “you see men die all the time, and you’re generally the cause of death.”
    “This was different,” he said. “The unexpectedness of it. And it was so violent.”
    “It’s usually violent, Keller. It’s what you do.”
    “But I didn’t do it,” he said. “I just sat there and watched it. Then the cops came and—“
    “And you were still there?”
    “I figured it might be riskier if I drove away. You know, leaving the scene of an accident. Even if I wasn’t a part of the accident.” He shrugged. “They took a statement and waved me on. I told them I didn’t really see anything, and they had another witness who saw the whole thing, and it’s not as though there was any dispute about what had happened. Except that the little old lady still thinks it was the car’s fault and not hers.”
    “But we know otherwise,” she said. “And so does the client.”
    “The client?”
    “Thinks you’re a genius, Keller. Thinks you arranged the whole thing, figures you found some perfectly ingenious way to get Klinger to step in front of that lady’s car.”
    “But . . .”
    “The customer,” she said, “is always right. Remember? Especially when he pays up, which this one did, like a shot. The job’s done and the client’s happy and we’ve been paid. Do you see a problem, Keller? Because I don’t.”
    He thought about it.
    “Keller? What did you do after Klinger got flattened?”
    “He didn’t get flattened. It hit him and he went flying, and—“
    “Spare me. I know you stuck around and gave a statement like a good citizen, but then what did you do?”
    “I came home,” he said. “But not immediately. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did was go into Milwaukee and see a couple of stamp dealers.”
    “You bought some stamps for your collection.”
    “Well, yes. I was there anyway, and I didn’t figure there was any reason to hurry home.”
    “You were right,” she said. “There wasn’t. And we’ve been paid, and now you can buy some more stamps. Are you all right, Keller? You seem a little bit out of it, and nobody gets jet lag coming home from Milwaukee.”
    “I’m fine,” he said. “It just seems strange. That’s all.”

Sixteen
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    Three weeks later Keller was eating huevos rancheros at Call Me Carlos, on the edge of Albuquerque’s Old Town. The menu had the same logo as the sign outside, with a grinning Mexican in an