Hit List

Keller supposed he could get hold of one. Find a newsman, take a press pass away from him, something like that. But then what? You had to pass through a metal detector in order to enter the building, and even if you could do the deed with your bare hands, how would you get out afterward?
    No point in hanging around the courthouse. No point in loitering in the vicinity of the Arrowhead Inn, either.
    It was easier to watch the whole thing on Court TV. And that’s what he was doing now, sitting in his motel room and muting the commercials, trying to figure out what they were selling. Eventually he’d be intrigued enough to turn the sound back on, and then you’d have him hanging on every word. It hadn’t happened to Keller yet, but he could see how it might.
    He watched the commercial, his finger poised over the Mute button, and only when it ended did he put the sound back on. A commentator was saying something about the arrival at last of the much-anticipated Michael Petrosian, the government’s star witness, and they cut to an outside shot as a cameraman in a helicopter filmed the arrival of the government convoy.
    And, just as he’d figured, there was no way anybody could get anywhere near the son of a bitch. There were no other cars around when the government cars pulled up, and the only spectators on the courthouse steps were a small contingent of photographers and reporters. They looked frustrated, penned as they were behind a rope barrier, unable to get close to their quarry. Even from the helicopter it was hard to spot Petrosian, just another body in a herd of bodies emerging from the cars and moving briskly up the flight of marble steps.
    Lee Marvin and the boys would have their work cut out for them, he thought. Unless . . . well, suppose that was Lee up there in the helicopter? And he brings the chopper in as close as he can, steering one-handed and leaning out of the thing with a machine gun. That might work, but so would a tactical nuclear weapon, and one was about as likely as the other for Keller.
    You had to hand it to the cameraman, though. He’d managed to single out Petrosian, and there the guy was, head lowered, shoulders hunched forward, climbing those steps.
    And then, for some reason, the men circling Petrosian drew away from him. He turned, and raised his balding head so that he was looking right at the camera. He looked terrified, Keller thought. Stricken.
    And Keller watched as the government’s star witness paled, clutched his hand to his chest, and pitched forward on his face.
    “They think you’re a genius,” Dot said. “A miracle worker. And you know what, Keller? I have to say I agree with them.”
    “I watched it on TV,” he said.
    “Keller,” she said, “ everybody watched it on TV. More people saw it than saw Ruby shoot Oswald. I must have seen it twenty times myself. I wasn’t watching while it happened, but who needs to in the Age of Instant Replay?”
    “I saw it live.”
    “And a few times since then, I’ll bet. Did I say twenty times? It was probably closer to fifty. And you know something, Keller? I still can’t figure out how you did it.”
    “I didn’t do anything.”
    “I understand they’re looking for puncture marks,” she said, “like the Bulgarian that got stabbed with the umbrella, or whatever the hell it was. Then two days later he died. They’re looking for puncture marks and traces of a slow-acting poison.”
    “And when they don’t find them?”
    “That’ll show that it’s a poison without a trace, and one that was delivered without breaking the skin. A puff from an atomizer, say. He breathes it in, and a day or two later he has what looks for all the world like a heart attack.”
    “It looked like one,” he said, “because that’s what it was.”
    “Right, but how did you make it happen?”
    “I didn’t.”
    “It just happened.”
    “Right.”
    “Help me find a way to believe that, Keller.”
    “Ask yourself why I would lie to you.”
    She thought about it. “You wouldn’t,” she said. “Well, he was overweight, he was out of shape, and he was under a lot of stress.”
    “Must have been.”
    “And those stairs looked steep. In the movies when somebody gets shot on the stairs he falls all the way to the bottom, but he just sort of flopped on his face and stayed where he fell. Keller? This is even better than the guy crossing the street, and why can’t I remember his name?”
    “Lee Klinger.”
    “Right. There at