Hit Man

he’d mutter something harmless about a wrong number, but was even that much contact a good idea? Maybe it would put Crowder on his guard. Maybe Crowder was already on his guard, as far as that went. That was the trouble with going in blind like this, knowing nothing about either the target or the client.
    If he called Crowder’s house from the motel, there might be a record of the call, a link between Lyman Crowder and Dale Whitlock. That wouldn’t matter much to Keller, who would shed the Whitlock identity on his way out of town, but there was no reason to create more grief for the real Dale Whitlock.
    Because there was a real Dale Whitlock, and Keller was giving him grief enough without making him a murder suspect.
    It was pretty slick the way the man in White Plains worked it. He knew a man who had a machine with which he could make flawless American Express cards. He knew someone else who could obtain the names and account numbers of bona fide American Express cardholders. Then he had cards made that were essentially duplicates of existing cards. You didn’t have to worry that the cardholder had reported his card as stolen, because it hadn’t been stolen, it was still sitting in his wallet. You were off somewhere charging the earth, and he didn’t have a clue until the charges turned up on his monthly statement.
    The driver’s license was real, too. Well, technically it was a counterfeit, of course, and the photograph on it showed Keller, not Whitlock. But someone had managed to access the Connecticut Bureau of Motor Vehicles computer, and thus the counterfeit license showed the same number as Whitlock’s, and gave the same address.
    In the old days, Keller thought, it had been a lot more straightforward. You didn’t need a license to ride a horse or a credit card to rent one. You bought or stole one, and when you rode into town on it nobody asked to see your ID. They might not even come right out and ask your name, and if they did they wouldn’t expect a detailed reply. “Call me Tex,” you’d say, and that’s what they’d call you as you rode off into the sunset.
    “Goodbye, Tex,” the blonde would call out. “I hope you enjoyed your stay with us.”
    The lounge downstairs turned out to be the hot spot in Martingale. Restless, Keller had gone downstairs to have a quiet drink. He walked into a thickly carpeted room with soft lighting and a good sound system. There were fifteen or twenty people in the place, all of them either having a good time or looking for one.
    Keller ordered a Coors at the bar. On the jukebox, Barbara Mandrell sang a song about cheating. When she was done, a duo he didn’t recognize sang a song about cheating. Then came Hank Williams’s oldie, “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
    A subtle pattern was beginning to emerge.
    “I love this song,” the blonde said.
    A different blonde, not the perky young thing from the front desk. This woman was taller, older, and fuller-figured. She wore a skirt and a sort of cowgirl blouse with piping and embroidery on it.
    “Old Hank,” Keller said, to say something.
    “I’m June.”
    “Call me Tex.”
    “Tex!” Her laughter came in a sort of yelp. “When did anybody ever call you Tex, tell me that?”
    “Well, nobody has,” he admitted, “but that’s not to say they never will.”
    “Where are you from, Tex? No, I’m sorry, I can’t call you that, it sticks in my throat. If you want me to call you Tex you’re going to have to start wearing boots.”
    “You see by my outfit that I’m not a cowboy.”
    “Your outfit, your accent, your haircut. If you’re not an easterner, then I’m a virgin.”
    “I’m from Connecticut.”
    “I knew it.”
    “My name’s Dale.”
    “Well, you could keep that. If you were fixing to be a cowboy, I mean. You’d have to change the way you dress and talk and comb your hair, but you could hang on to Dale. There another name that goes with it?”
    In for a penny, in for a pound. “Whitlock,” he said.
    “Dale Whitlock. Shoot, that’s pretty close to perfect. You tell ’em a name like that, you got credit down at the Agway in a New York minute. Wouldn’t even have to fill out a form. You married, Dale?”
    What was the right answer? She was wearing a ring herself, and the jukebox was now playing yet another cheating song.
    “Not in Martingale,” he said.
    “Oh, I like that,” she said, eyes sparkling. “I like the whole idea of regional marriage. I am married in Martingale, but