Hit Man

But I would recommend that you stick with freshwater. Those saltwater tanks are a real headache to maintain.”
    “I’ll remember that.”
    She bent over to pet the dog, then straightened up. She said, “Can I ask you something? Is it all right if I stay here tonight?”
    “Of course. I more or less figured you would.”
    “Well, I wasn’t sure, and it’s a little late to make other arrangements. But I thought you might want to be alone after your trip and—”
    “I wasn’t gone that long.”
    “You’re sure it’s all right?”
    “Absolutely.”
    They watched television together, drinking cups of hot chocolate that Andria made. When the program ended Keller took Nelson for a late walk. “Do you really want a fish tank?” he asked the dog. “If I can have a television set, I suppose you ought to be able to have a fish tank. But would you watch it after the first week or so? Or would you get bored with it?”
    That was the thing about dogs, he thought. They didn’t get bored the way people did.
    After a couple of blocks he found himself talking to Nelson about what had happened in St. Louis. “They didn’t say anything about a woman,” he said. “I bet she wasn’t registered. I don’t think she was his wife, so I guess she wasn’t officially there. That’s why he sent her to the bathroom before he opened the door, and why he didn’t want to open the door in the first place. If she’d stayed in the bathroom another minute—”
    But suppose she had? She’d have been screaming her head off before Keller was out of the hotel, and she’d have been able to give a certain amount of information to the police. How the killer had gained access to the room, for a starter.
    Just as well things had gone the way they did, he decided. But it still rankled. They hadn’t said anything at all about a woman.
    There was only one bathroom. Andria used it first. Keller heard the shower running, then nothing until she emerged wearing a generally shapeless garment of pink flannel that covered her from her neck to her ankles. Her toenails were painted, Keller noticed, each a different color.
    Keller showered and put on a robe. Andria was on the sofa, reading a magazine. They said goodnight and he clucked to Nelson, and the dog followed him into the bedroom. When he closed the door the dog made that sound again.
    He shucked the robe, got into bed, patted the bed at his side. Nelson stayed where he was, right in front of the door, and he repeated that sound in his throat, making it the least bit more insistent this time.
    “You want to go out?”
    Nelson wagged his tail, which Keller had to figure for a yes. He opened the door and the dog went into the other room. He closed the door and got back into bed, trying to decide if he was jealous. It struck him that he might not only be jealous of the girl, because Nelson wanted to be with her instead of with him, but he might as easily be jealous of the dog, because he got to sleep with Andria and Keller didn’t.
    Little pink toes, each with the nail painted a different color. . .
    He was still sorting it out when the door opened and the dog trotted in. “He wants to be with you,” Andria said, and she drew the door shut before Keller could frame a response.
    But did he? The animal didn’t seem to know what he wanted. He sprang onto Keller’s bed, turned around once, twice, and then leaped onto the floor and went over to the door. He made that noise again, but this time it sounded plaintive.
    Keller got up and opened the door. Nelson moved into the doorway, half in and half out of the room. Keller leaned into the doorway himself and said, “I think the closed door bothers him. Suppose I leave it open?”
    “Sure.”
    He left the door ajar and went back to bed. Nelson seized the opportunity and went on into the living room. Moments later he was back in the bedroom. Moments after that he was on his way to the living room. Why, Keller wondered, was the dog behaving like an expectant father in a maternity ward waiting room? What was all this back-and-forth business about?
    Keller closed his eyes, feeling as far from sleep as he was from Sardinia. Why, he wondered, did Andria want to go there? For the sardines? Then she could stop at Corsica for a corset, and head on to Elba for the macaroni. And Malta for the falcons, and Crete for the cretins, and—
    He was just getting drifty when the dog came back.
    “Nelson,” he said, “what the hell’s the matter with