Hit Man

actions from all concerned—Garrity, his homicidal rival, and, perhaps most important, Dot and the old man.
    All told, it was a great deal more complicated (if easier to stomach) than the alternative.
    Which was to carry out the assignment professionally and kill Wallace Penrose Garrity the first good chance he got.
    And he really didn’t want to do that. He’d eaten at the man’s table, he’d drunk the man’s brandy, he’d smoked the man’s cigars. He’d been offered not merely a job but a well-paid executive position with a future, and, later that night, light-headed from alcohol and nicotine, he’d had fantasies of taking Wally up on it.
    Hell, why not? He could live out his days as Michael Soderholm, doing whatever unspecified tasks Garrity was hiring him to perform. He probably lacked the requisite experience, but how hard could it be to pick up the skills he needed as he went along? Whatever he had to do, it would be easier than flying from town to town killing people. He could learn on the job. He could pull it off.
    The fantasy had about as much substance as a dream, and, like a dream, it was gone when he awoke the next morning. No one would put him on the payroll without some sort of background check, and the most cursory scan would knock him out of the box. Michael Soderholm had no more substance than the fake ID in his wallet.
    Even if he somehow finessed a background check, even if the old man in White Plains let him walk out of one life and into another, he knew he couldn’t really make it work. He already had a life. Misshapen though it was, it fit him like a glove.
    Other lives made tempting fantasies. Running a print shop in Roseburg, Oregon, living in a cute little house with a mansard roof—it was something to tease yourself with while you went on being the person you had no choice but to be. This latest fantasy was just more of the same.
    He went out for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He got back in his car and drove around for a while. Then he found a pay phone and called White Plains.
    “Do a single,” Dot said.
    “How’s that?”
    “No added extras, no free dividends. Just do what they signed on for.”
    “Because the client’s here in town,” he said. “Well, I could work around that if I knew his name. I could make sure he was out of it.”
    “Forget it,” Dot said. “The client wants a long and happy life for everybody but the designated vic. Maybe the DV’s close associates are near and dear to the client. That’s just a guess, but all that really matters is that nobody else gets hurt. Capeesh?”
    “ ‘Capeesh?’ ”
    “It’s Italian, it means—”
    “I know what it means. It just sounded odd from your lips, that’s all. But yes, I understand.” He took a breath. “Whole thing may take a little time,” he said.
    “Then here comes the good news,” she said. “Time’s not of the essence. They don’t care how long it takes, just so you get it right.”
    “I understand W.P. offered you a job,” Vanessa said.
    “I know he hopes you’ll take him up on it.”
    “I think he was just being generous,” Keller told her. “I was in the right place at the right time, and he’d like to do me a favor, but I don’t think he really expects me to come to work for him.”
    “He’d like it if you did,” she said, “or he never would have made the offer. He’d have just given you money, or a car, or something like that. And as far as what he expects, well, W.P. generally expects to get whatever he wants. Because that’s the way things usually work out.”
    And had she been saving up her pennies to get things to work out a little differently? You had to wonder. Was she truly under Garrity’s spell, in awe of his power, as she seemed to be? Or was she only in it for the money, and was there a sharp edge of irony under her worshipful remarks?
    Hard to say. Hard to tell about any of them. Was Hank the loyal son he appeared to be, content to live in the old man’s shadow and take what got tossed his way? Or was he secretly resentful and ambitious?
    What about the son-in-law, Doak? On the surface, he looked to be delighted with the aftermath of his college football career—his work for his father-in-law consisted largely of playing golf with business associates and drinking with them afterward. But did he seethe inside, sure he was fit for greater things?
    How about Hank’s wife, Ellie? She struck Keller as an unlikely Lady Macbeth. Keller could fabricate