Hit Man

the come, you can imagine what kind of money was at stake here.”
    “It paid off.”
    “It paid off but he didn’t. Stupid.”
    “Very stupid.”
    “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. “I think the money was the least of it. I think he wanted to feel superior to us. I mean, why go through all this Cressida Wallace crap in the first place? Does he figure I’m a Boy Scout, doing my good deed for the day?”
    “He figured we were amateurs, Keller. And needed to be motivated.”
    “Yeah, well, he figured wrong,” he said. “I have to pack, I’ve got a flight in an hour and a half and I have to call Andria. We’re getting paid, Dot. Don’t worry.”
    “I wasn’t worried,” she said.
    Which one, he wondered, was Cleary? The plump one who’d gone to lunch with Lauderheim? Or the nerd in the lab coat who’d walked out to the parking lot with him?
    Or someone else, someone he hadn’t even seen. Cleary might well have been out of town that day, providing himself with an alibi.
    Didn’t matter. You didn’t need to know what a man looked like to get him on the phone.
    Cleary, like his late partner, had an unlisted home phone number. But the firm, Loud & Clear, had a listing. Keller called from his motel room—this time he was staying at the one with HBO. He used the electronic novelty item he’d picked up at Abercrombie & Fitch, and when a woman answered he said he wanted to speak to Randall Cleary.
    “Whom shall I say is calling?”
    Whom, he noted. Not bad for Muscatine, Iowa.
    “Cressida Wallace,” he said.
    She put him on hold, but he did not languish there for long. Moments later he heard a male voice, one he could not recognize. “Cleary,” the man said. “Who is this?”
    “Ah, Mr. Cleary,” he said. “This is Miss Cressida Wallace.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “It is,” Keller said, “and I understand you’ve been using my name, and I’m frightfully upset.”
    Silence from Cleary. Keller unhooked the device that had altered the pitch of his voice. “Toxic Shock,” he said in his own voice. “You stupid son of a bitch.”
    “There was a problem,” Cleary said. “I’m going to send you the money.”
    “Why didn’t you get in touch?”
    “I was going to. You can’t believe how busy we’ve been around here.”
    “Why’d you disconnect your phone?”
    “I thought, you know, security reasons.”
    “Right,” Keller said.
    “I’m going to pay.”
    “No question about it,” Keller said. “Today. You’re going to FedEx the money today. Overnight delivery, Mary Jones gets it tomorrow. Are we clear on that?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “And the price went up. Remember what you were supposed to send?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, double it.”
    There was a silence. “That’s impossible. It’s extortion, for God’s sake.”
    “Look,” Keller said, “do yourself a favor. Think it through.”
    Another silence, but shorter. “All right,” Cleary said.
    “In cash, and it gets there tomorrow. Agreed?”
    “Agreed.”
    He called Dot from a pay phone, had dinner, and went back to his room. This motel had HBO, so of course there was nothing on that he wanted to watch. It figured.
    In the morning he skipped the diner and had a big breakfast at a Denny’s on the highway. He drove up to Davenport and made two stops, at a sporting goods store and a hardware store. He went back to his motel, and around two in the afternoon he called White Plains.
    “This is Cressida Wallace,” he said. “Have there been any calls for me?”
    “Damned if it doesn’t work,” Dot said. “You sound just like a woman.”
    “But I break just like a little girl,” Keller said.
    “Very funny. Quit using that thing, will you? It sounds like a woman, but it’s your way of talking, your inflections underneath it all. Let me hear the Keller I know so well.”
    He unhooked the gadget. “Better?”
    “Much better. Your pal came through.”
    “Got the numbers right and everything?”
    “Indeed he did.”
    “I think the voice-change gizmo helped,” he said. “It made him see we knew everything.”
    “Oh, he’d have paid anyway,” she said. “All you had to do was yank his chain a little. You just liked using your new toy, that’s all. When are you coming home, Keller?”
    “Not right away.”
    “Well, I know that.”
    “No, I think I’ll wait a few days,” he said. “Right now he’s edgy, looking over his shoulder. Beginning of next week he’ll have his guard down.”
    “Makes