Hit Man

had a dog, as far as he could determine. Neither had any strong prodog or antidog feelings. It would have been helpful to discover that Strang was a heavy contributor to the ASPCA and the Anti-Vivisection League, or that Moncrieff liked to go to a basement in Kentucky and watch a couple of pit bulls fight to the death, betting substantial sums on the outcome.
    But he came across nothing of the sort, and the more he thought about it the less legitimate a criterion it seemed to him. Why should a matter of life and death hinge upon how a man felt about dogs? And who was Keller to care anyway? It was not as if he were a dog owner himself. Not anymore.
    “Neither one’s Albert Schweitzer,” he told Dot, “and neither one’s Hitler. They both fall somewhere in between, so making a decision on moral grounds is impossible. I’ll tell you, this is murder.”
    “It’s not,” she said. “That’s the whole trouble, Keller. You’re in Cincinnati and the clock’s running.”
    “I know.”
    “Moral decisions. This is the wrong business for moral decisions.”
    “You’re right,” he said. “And who am I to be making that kind of decision, anyway?”
    “Spare me the humility,” she said. “Listen, I’m as crazy as you are. I had this idea, call both brokers, have them get in touch with their clients. Explain that due to the exigencies of this particular situation, di dah di dah di dah, we need full payment in advance.”
    “You think they’d go for it?”
    “If one of them went for it,” she said, “that’d make the decision, wouldn’t it? Knock him off and the other guy’s left alive to pay in full, a satisfied customer.”
    “That’s brilliant,” he said, and thought a moment. “Except . . .”
    “Ah, you spotted it, didn’t you? The guy who cooperates, the guy who goes the extra mile to be a really good client, he’s the one who gets rewarded by getting killed. I like ironic as much as the next person, Keller, but I decided that’s a little too much for me.”
    “Besides,” he said, “with our luck they’d both pay.”
    “And we’d be back where we started. Keller?”
    “What?”
    “All said and done, there’s only one answer. You got a quarter?”
    “Probably. Why?”
    “Toss it,” she said. “Heads or tails.”
    Heads.
    Keller picked up the quarter he’d tossed, dropped it into the slot. He dialed a number, and while it rang he wondered at the wisdom of making such a decision on the basis of a coin toss. It seemed awfully arbitrary to him, but then again maybe it was the way of the world. Maybe somewhere up above the clouds there was an old man with a beard making life-and-death decisions in the very same way, tossing coins, shrugging, and passing out train wrecks and heart attacks.
    “Let me talk to Mr. Strang,” he told the person who answered. “Just tell him it’s in reference to a recent contract.”
    There was a long pause, and Keller dug out another quarter in case the phone needed feeding. Then Strang came on the line. It seemed to Keller that he recognized the voice even though he had never heard it before. The voice was resonant, like an opera singer’s, though hardly musical.
    “I don’t know who you are,” Strang said without preamble, “and I don’t discuss business over the phone with people I don’t know.”
    Fat, Keller thought. The man sounded fat.
    “Very wise,” Keller told him. “Well, we’ve got business to discuss, and I agree it shouldn’t be over the phone. We ought to meet, but nobody should see us together, or even know we’re having the meeting.” He listened for a moment. “You’re the client,” he said. “I was hoping you could suggest a time and a place.” He listened some more. “Good,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
    “But it seems irregular,” Strang said, with a whine in his voice that you would never have heard from Pavarotti. “I don’t see the need for this, I really don’t.”
    “You will,” Keller told him. “I can promise you that.”
    He broke the connection, then opened his hand and looked at the quarter he was holding. He thought for a moment—about the old man in White Plains, and then about the old man up in the sky. The one with the long white beard, the one who tossed coins of his own and ran the universe accordingly. He thought about the turns in his own life, and the way people could walk in and out of it.
    He weighed the coin in his palm—it didn’t weigh very much—and he gave it a toss,