Hit List

oversize sombrero. You knew at a glance that the place was Mexican-owned, Keller thought, because no gringo would have dared use such a broad caricature.
    If there was any doubt, the food resolved it. They served the best huevos rancheros he’d had, with the possible exception of a little café he knew in Roseburg, Oregon.
    He’d said as much to Dot the previous night. “Oh, spare me, Keller,” she’d replied. “Roseburg, Oregon? Keller, you wanted to move there. Remember?”
    It had been a mistake to mention Roseburg, and he’d realized it the minute he said it. Usually it was Dot who mentioned the town, throwing it up at him whenever he said anything nice about any of the places he visited.
    “I didn’t exactly want to move there,” he protested.
    “You looked at houses.”
    “I thought about it,” he said, “the way you think about things, but I didn’t—“
    “The way you think about things, Keller. Not the way I think about things. There’s something else you could be thinking about, instead of houses in Roseburg, Oregon.”
    “I know,” he said. “And anyway, I wasn’t.”
    “Thinking about houses? You said . . .”
    “I was thinking about that café, and all I was thinking was that it was better than where I’ve been having breakfast. Except it probably isn’t, because memory improves things.”
    “It would have to,” Dot said, “or we’d all kill ourselves.”
    “And as far as the other thing I could be thinking about, I think it’s impossible.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me.”
    “A few more plates of huevos rancheros,” he said, “and I think it’ll be time for me to come home.”
    “Without looking at houses?”
    “They’re mostly adobe,” he said, “and I have to say they look pretty from the outside, but that’s as much as I want to see of them. I’ll stay long enough to make it look good, but then I’m coming home.”
    He finished his eggs, finished his second cup of coffee, and went out to his rented Toyota. The sun was bright, the air cool and dry. If you had to make a pointless trip somewhere, this wasn’t the worst place for it.
    A week earlier he’d taken the train to White Plains and sat across the kitchen table from Dot while she laid it all out for him. Michael Petrosian was in federal custody, guarded around the clock while he waited to testify. Without his testimony, the government didn’t have much of a case. With it, they could put some important people away for a long time.
    “That’s why,” he’d said. “The question is how.”
    “Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?”
    “That’s the word that came to mind.”
    “It came to my mind, too. It came to my lips, too, along with the phrase ‘I think we’ll pass on this one.’ “
    “But you changed your mind.”
    “The minute he agreed that you get paid either way.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Half in advance, half on completion.”
    “So? That’s standard.”
    “Patience,” she said. “What’s not standard is you can look it over, decide it’s impossible, and come on home. And the half they paid is yours to keep.”
    “How’d you manage that?”
    “By letting them talk me into it. It turns out I’m good at this, Keller.”
    “I’m not surprised.”
    “And I guess you could say they’re pretty desperate. One hand, the job has to be done. Other hand, it can’t be done. Add ’em up, it comes out desperate.”
    “They probably got even more desperate,” he said, “when they offered the contract and got turned down.”
    She poured herself some more iced tea. “I know they shopped this around. They wouldn’t come right out and say so, but they never would have taken my terms if they hadn’t run into a few brick walls along the way.”
    “It’d be nice to know just who told them no.”
    “Roger, for instance.”
    “For instance,” he agreed.
    “Well,” she said, “I think we have to assume they ran it past him. So we’re taking the usual precautions. Nobody’s meeting you, nobody knows who you are or where you’re coming from. Even if Roger’s out there in Albuquerque, even if he’s sitting in Petrosian’s lap, he’s never going to draw a bead on you. Because all you have to do is fly out there and fly back and you get paid.”
    “Half,” he said.
    “Half if all you do is take a look. The other half if you make it happen. And there’s an escalator.”
    “Instead of a staircase?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Because what’s the difference? He’s going