Hit Man

western novel that had set the tone for everything that followed.
    He hoped Mrs. Whitlock liked the flowers.

3
    Keller's Therapy
    “I had this dream,” Keller said. “Matter of fact I wrote it down, as you suggested.”
    “Good.”
    Before getting on the couch Keller had removed his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. He moved from the couch to retrieve his notebook from the jacket’s inside breast pocket, then sat on the couch and found the page with the dream on it. He read through his notes rapidly, closed the book, and sat there, uncertain how to proceed.
    “As you prefer,” said Breen. “Sitting up or lying down, whichever is more comfortable.”
    “It doesn’t matter?”
    “Not to me.”
    And which was more comfortable? A seated posture seemed more natural for conversation, while lying down on the couch had the weight of tradition on its side. Keller, who felt driven to give this his best shot, decided to go with tradition. He stretched out, put his feet up.
    He said, “I’m living in a house, except it’s almost like a castle. Endless passageways and dozens of rooms.”
    “Is it your house?”
    “No, I just live here. In fact I’m a kind of servant for the family that owns the house. They’re almost like royalty.”
    “And you are a servant.”
    “Except I have very little to do, and I’m treated like an equal. I play tennis with members of the family. There’s this tennis court in back of the house.”
    “And this is your job? To play tennis with them?”
    “No, that’s an example of how they treat me as an equal. And I eat at the same table with them, instead of eating downstairs with the servants. My job is the mice.”
    “The mice?”
    The house is infested with mice. I’m having dinner with the family, I’ve got a plate piled high with good food, and a waiter in black tie comes in and presents a covered dish. I lift the cover and there’s a note on it, and it says, ‘Mice.’ ”
    “Just the single word?”
    “That’s all. I get up from the table and I follow the servant down a long hallway, and I wind up in an unfinished room in the attic. There are tiny mice all over the room, there must be twenty or thirty of them, and I have to kill them.”
    “How?”
    “By crushing them underfoot. That’s the quickest and most humane way, but it bothers me and I don’t want to do it. But the sooner I finish, the sooner I can get back to my dinner, and I’m very hungry.”
    “So you kill the mice?”
    “Yes,” Keller said. “One almost gets away but I stomp on it just as it’s getting out the door. And then I’m back at the dinner table and everybody’s eating and drinking and laughing, and my plate’s been cleared away. Then there’s a big fuss, and finally they bring my plate back from the kitchen, but it’s not the same food as before. It’s. . . ”
    “Yes?”
    “Mice,” Keller said. “They’re skinned and cooked, but it’s a plateful of mice.”
    “And you eat them?”
    “That’s when I woke up,” Keller said. “And not a moment too soon, I’d have to say.”
    “Ah,” Breen said. He was a tall man, long-limbed and gawky, wearing chinos and a dark green shirt and a brown corduroy jacket. He looked to Keller like someone who had been a nerd in high school, and who now managed to look distinguished, in an eccentric sort of way. He said “Ah” again, and folded his hands, and asked Keller what he thought the dream meant.
    “You’re the doctor,” Keller said.
    “You think it means that I am the doctor?”
    “No, I think you’re the one who can say what it means. Maybe it just means I shouldn’t eat Rocky Road ice cream right before I go to bed.”
    “Tell me what you think the dream might mean.”
    “Maybe I see myself as a cat.”
    “Or as an exterminator?” Keller didn’t say anything.
    “Let us work with this dream on a very superficial level,” Breen said. “You’re employed as a corporate troubleshooter, except that you used another word for it.”
    “They tend to call us expediters,” Keller said, “but troubleshooter is what it amounts to.”
    “Most of the time there is nothing for you to do. You have considerable opportunity for recreation, for living the good life. For tennis, as it were, and for nourishing yourself at the table of the rich and powerful. Then mice are discovered, and it is at once clear that you are a servant with a job to do.”
    “I get it,” Keller said.
    “Go on, then. Explain it to