Hit Man

would have gotten around to it sooner or later.”
    They were both silent for a long moment. Then she asked him what he was going to do. About what, he asked.
    “About what? About your dog and your girlfriend.”
    “I thought that’s what you meant,” he said, “but you could have been talking about Moncrieff and Strang. But it’s the same answer all around. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
    What it came down to was this. He had a choice to make. It was his decision as to which contract he would fulfill and which he would cancel.
    And how did you decide something like that? Two people wanted his services, and only one could have them. If he were a painting, the answer would be obvious. You’d have an auction, and whoever was willing to make the highest bid would have something pretty to hang over the couch. But you couldn’t have bids in the present instance because the price had already been fixed, and both parties independently had agreed to it. Each had paid half in advance, and when the job was done one of them would pay the additional 50 percent and the other would be technically entitled to a refund, but in no position to claim it.
    So in that sense the contract was potentially more lucrative than usual, paying one and a half times the standard rate. It came out the same no matter how you did it. Kill Moncrieff, and Strang would pay the rest of the money. Kill Strang, and Moncrieff would pay it.
    Which would it be?
    Moncrieff, he thought, had called first. The old man had made a deal with him, and a guarantee of exclusivity was implicit in such an arrangement. When you hired somebody to kill someone, you didn’t require assurance that he wouldn’t hire on to kill you as well. That went without saying.
    So their initial commitment was to Moncrieff, and any arrangements made with Strang ought to be null and void. Money from Strang wasn’t really a retainer, it came more under the heading of windfall profits, and needn’t weigh in the balance. You could even argue that taking Strang’s advance payment was a perfectly legitimate tactical move, designed to lull the quarry into a feeling of false security, thus making him easier to get to.
    On the other hand. . .
    On the other hand, if Moncrieff had just kept his damned mouth shut, Strang wouldn’t have been forewarned, and consequently forearmed. It was Moncrieff, running his mouth about his plans to do the fat man in, that had induced Strang to call somebody, who called somebody else, who wound up talking to the old man in White Plains.
    And it was Moncrieff’s blabbing that had made Strang such an elusive target. Otherwise it would have been easy to get to the fat man, and by now Keller would have long since completed the assignment. Instead of sitting all by himself in a motel on the outskirts of Cincinnati, he could be sitting all by himself in an apartment on First Avenue.
    Moncrieff, loose of lip, had sunk his own ship. Moncrieff, unable to keep a secret, had sabotaged the very contract he had been so quick to arrange. Couldn’t you argue that his actions, with their unfortunate results, had served to nullify the contract? In which case the old man was more than justified in retaining his deposit while accepting a counterproposal from another interested party.
    Which meant that the thing to do was regard the fat man as the bona fide client and Moncrieff (fat or lean, tall or short, Keller didn’t know which) as the proper quarry.
    On the other hand . . .
    * * *
    Moncrieff had a penthouse apartment atop a high-rise not far from Riverfront Stadium. The Reds were in town for a home stand, and Keller bought a ticket and an inexpensive pair of field glasses and went to watch them. His seat was out in right field, remote enough that he wasn’t the only one with binoculars. Near him sat a father and son, both of whom had brought gloves in the hope of catching a foul ball. Neither pitcher had his stuff, and both teams hit a lot of long balls, but the kid and his father only got excited when somebody hit a long foul to right.
    Keller wondered about that. If what they wanted was a baseball, wouldn’t they be better off buying one at a sporting goods store? If they wanted the thrill of the chase, well, they could get the clerk to throw it up in the air, and the kid could catch it when it came down.
    During breaks in the action, Keller trained the binoculars on a window of what he was pretty sure was Moncrieff ’s apartment. He found himself