Hit Man

so.”
    “You’ll love it. You’ll want to move there.”
    He didn’t even want to go there. Halfway down the porch stairs he turned, retraced his steps, and said, “The man and woman in 314. Who were they?”
    “Who knows? They weren’t Gunnar Ruthven, I can tell you that much.”
    “That’s who I’m going to see in Tulsa?”
    “Let’s hope so. As far as the pair in 314, I don’t know any names. He was a local businessman, owned a dry-cleaning plant or something like that. I don’t know anything about her. They were married, but not to each other. What I hear, you interrupted a matinee.”
    “That’s what it looked like.”
    “Rang down the curtain,” Dot said. “What a world, huh?”
    “His name was Harry.”
    “See, I told you it wasn’t Gunnar Ruthven. What’s it matter, Keller? You’re not going to send flowers, are you?”
    “I’ll be gone longer this time,” he told Andria. “I have to . . . go someplace and . . . take care of some business.”
    “I’ll take care of Nelson,” she said. “And we’ll both be here when you get back.”
    His plane was leaving from Newark. He packed a bag and called a livery service for a car to the airport.
    He said, “Does it bother you?”
    “What you do? It would bother me if I did it, but I couldn’t do it, so that’s beside the point. But does it bother me that you do it? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s what you do.”
    “But don’t you think it’s wrong?”
    She thought it over. “I don’t think it’s wrong for you, ” she said. “I think it’s your karma.”
    “You mean like destiny or something?”
    “Sort of. It’s what you have to do in order to learn the lesson you’re supposed to learn in this lifetime. We’re not just here once, you know. We live many lives.”
    “You believe that, huh?”
    “It’s more a matter of knowledge than belief.”
    “Oh.” Karma, he thought. “What about the people I go and see? It’s just their karma?”
    “Doesn’t that make sense to you?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
    He had plenty of time to think about karma. He was in Tulsa for five days before he had a chance to close the file on Gunnar Ruthven. A sad-eyed young man named Joel met his flight and gave him a tour of the city that included Ruthven’s suburban home and downtown office building. Ruthven lived in a two-story mock-Tudor house on about half an acre of land and had an office in the Great Southwestern Bank building within a block of the courthouse. Then Joel drove to the All-American Inn, one of a couple of dozen motels clustered together on a strip a mile from the airport. “The reason for the name,” Joel said, “is so you would know the place wasn’t owned by Indians. I don’t mean your Native Americans, I mean Indians from India. They own most of the motels. So this here place, the owners changed the name to the All-American, and they even had a huge signboard announcing the place was owned and operated by hundred-percent Americans.”
    “Did somebody make them take the sign down?”
    Joel shook his head. “After about a year,” he said, “they sold out, and the new owners took the sign down.”
    “They didn’t like the implications?”
    “Not hardly. See, they’re Indians. Place is decent, though, and you don’t have to go through the lobby. In fact you’re already registered and paid in advance for a week. I figured you’d like that. Here’s your room key, and here’s a set of car keys. They belong to that Toyota over there, third from the end. Paper for it’s in the glove box, along with a little twenty-two automatic. If you prefer something heavier, just say so.”
    Keller assured him it would be fine. “Why don’t you get settled,” Joel said, “and get yourself something to eat if you’re hungry. The Sizzler across the street on the left isn’t bad. I’ll pick you up in say two hours and we’ll sneak a peek at the fellow you came out here to see.”
    Joel picked him up on schedule and they rode downtown and parked in a metered lot. They sat in the lobby of Ruthven’s office building. After twenty minutes Joel said, “Getting off the elevator. Glen plaid suit, horn-rimmed glasses, carrying the aluminum briefcase. Looks space age, I guess, but I’d go for genuine leather every time, myself.”
    Keller took a good look. Ruthven was tall and slender, with a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Keller said, “Are you positive that’s