Hit Man

talked some, then sat a while in silence. At length Keller said he ought to get going. “I should be at my hotel,” he said, “in case they call.”
    “Be a couple of days, won’t it?”
    “Probably,” he said, “but you never know. If everyone involved makes a phone call right away, the word could get to me in a couple of hours.”
    “Calling you off, telling you to come home. Be glad to get home, I bet.”
    “It’s nice here,” he said, “but yes, I’ll be glad to get home.”
    “Wherever it is, they say there’s no place like it.” Garrity leaned back, then allowed himself to wince at the pain that came over him. “If it never hurts worse than this,” he said, “then I can stand it. But of course it will get worse. And I’ll decide I can stand that, and then it’ll get worse again.”
    There was nothing to say to that.
    “I guess I’ll know when it’s time to do something,” Garrity said. “And who knows? Maybe my heart’ll cut out on me out of the blue. Or I’ll get hit by a bus, or I don’t know what. Struck by lightning?”
    “It could happen.”
    “Anything can happen,” Garrity agreed. He got to his feet. “Mike,” he said, “I guess we won’t be seeing any more of each other, and I have to say I’m a little bit sorry about that. I’ve truly enjoyed our time together.”
    “So have I, Wally.”
    “I wondered, you know, what he’d be like. The man they’d send to do this kind of work. I don’t know what I expected, but you’re not it.”
    He stuck out his hand, and Keller gripped it. “Take care,” Garrity said. “Be well, Mike.”
    Back at his hotel, Keller took a hot bath and got a good night’s sleep. In the morning he went out for breakfast, and when he got back there was a message at the desk for him: Mr. Soderholm—please call your office.
    He called from a pay phone, even though it didn’t matter, and he was careful not to overreact when Dot told him to come home, the mission was aborted.
    “You told me I had all the time in the world,” he said. “If I’d known the guy was in such a rush—”
    “Keller,” she said, “it’s a good thing you waited. What he did, he changed his mind.”
    “He changed his mind?”
    “It used to be a woman’s prerogative,” Dot said, “but now we’ve got equality between the sexes, so that means anyone can do it. It works out fine because we’re getting paid in full. So kick the dust of Texas off your feet and come on home.”
    “I’ll do that,” he said, “but I may hang out here for a few more days.”
    “Oh?”
    “Or even a week,” he said. “It’s a pretty nice town.”
    “Don’t tell me you’re itching to move there, Keller. We’ve been through this before.”
    “Nothing like that,” he said, “but there’s this girl I met.”
    “Oh, Keller.”
    “Well, she’s nice,” he said. “And if I’m off the job there’s no reason not to have a date or two with her, is there?”
    “As long as you don’t decide to move in.”
    “She’s not that nice,” he said, and Dot laughed and told him not to change.
    He hung up and drove around and found a movie he’d been meaning to see. The next morning he packed and checked out of his hotel.
    He drove across town and got a room on the motel strip, paying cash for four nights in advance and registering as J. D. Smith from Los Angeles.
    There was no girl he’d met, no girl he wanted to meet. But it wasn’t time to go home yet.
    He had unfinished business, and four days should give him time to do it. Time for Wallace Garrity to get used to the idea of not feeling those imaginary crosshairs on his shoulder blades.
    But not so much time that the pain would be too much to bear.
    And, sometime in those four days, Keller would give him a gift. If he could, he’d make it look natural—a heart attack, say, or an accident. In any event it would be swift and without warning, and as close as he could make it to painless.
    And it would be unexpected. Garrity would never see it coming.
    Keller frowned, trying to figure out how he would manage it. It would be a lot trickier than the task that had drawn him to town originally, but he’d brought it on himself. Getting involved, fishing the boy out of the pool. He’d interfered with the natural order of things. He was under an obligation.
    It was the least he could do.

9
    Keller's Last Refuge
    K eller, reaching for a red carnation, paused to finger one of the green ones. Kelly green it was, and vivid.