When Keller turned the corner, he saw Dot standing on the front porch. A white flowerpot was suspended from the ceiling on either side of the old-fashioned glider, and each held a spider plant, and she was watering them. She turned at his approach, and her eyes widened, but she took a moment to finish watering the plants.
“This one,” she said, “is growing faster than the other. See? It’s got more babies, it’s going to reach the floor sooner. I wonder if I should trim it and keep them both the same length.”
“Why?”
“In the interest of symmetry,” she said, “except I’m not sure it’s good for the plant. What did you do, walk from the train station?”
“It’s a nice day.”
“I guess that’s a yes. Except how did you get here so fast? I left a message on your machine less than an hour ago, and by the time you got it and caught a train at Grand Central…” She frowned. “It doesn’t add up. What did you do, call in and pick up your messages?”
“I went out for breakfast,” he said, “and I read the paper and did the crossword puzzle, and then I was going to call you but I figured I’d take a chance and just come up. I never thought to check for messages.”
“You came up on your own. There’s a stamp you want to buy, so you want some of the money from our brokerage account.”
He shook his head.
“You sensed that I was trying to reach you, and that’s what drew you here. No? Well, I’m all out of guesses, Keller. Come on inside and tell me about it.”
At the kitchen table, he drew a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. Without unfolding it he said, “I’ve been thinking. I’ve got my share of whatever’s in our brokerage account, but aside from that most of my net worth is tied up in stamps. There are ten albums, plus a small carton of odds and ends.”
“In your apartment.”
“That’s right. Now here’s what I want you to do. If something should happen to me, go straight to my apartment. You still have the key I gave you, don’t you?”
“Somewhere.”
“If you’re not sure where it is-”
“I know right where it is, Keller. It’s hanging on a hook by the back door. You want to tell me what all this is about?”
“What you’ll do,” he said, “is go to my apartment and let yourself in. You’ll probably want a helper, because they’re hefty albums and it’s a lot to carry. Just take them right on out of there and bring them back here.”
“And then I suppose I’ll have to kill my helper and bury him in the backyard, because dead men tell no tales.”
“I’m serious about this, Dot.”
“I can see that, and I wish I knew why.”
“I was thinking about that guy. Sheridan Bingham.”
“The one who went out the window.”
“He’d made arrangements. His stamp collection was going to Wayne State University, and they would sell it. Well, what would happen to my collection? It would just sit there until somebody cleared out my apartment, and then God knows what would become of it.”
“And you want me to display it or something? Add stamps to it?”
“What do you care about stamps? You can sell it and do whatever you want with the money.”
“But-”
“I haven’t got anybody else to leave anything to,” he said, “and I haven’t got anything else to leave, aside from the brokerage account. And you’d get that, wouldn’t you?”
“Officially,” she said, “we’re joint tenants with right of survivorship. So yes, it’d come to me. Keller, why the hell are we having this conversation?”
“Peace of mind,” he said.
“My mind was at peace before you brought this up,” she said, “and now it’s not, so I have to say I think the whole thing’s counterproductive.”
“Just let me finish going through this.” He unfolded the sheet of paper. “Three dealers,” he said. “What you do, you call all three and offer them the opportunity to inspect the collection and make an offer. I wrote out a description of the material. Schedule them on different days, because it’ll take them a while to look through everything and come up with a price.” He went on, explaining how to negotiate with the dealers, and what sort of offer she might realistically expect. With really expensive items, a dealer could work on a narrow margin; with common stamps, you could recover only a very small fraction of the cost when you sold. On balance he figured his collection would probably bring a fourth to a third of catalog value, but it was hard to say for sure.
“If you think of stamps as an investment,” he said, “you’re better off putting the money in the market, or even in the savings bank. But if you think of it as a hobby, a leisure-time pursuit, well, you get a certain amount back, and that’s not true of fly-fishing.”
“On the other hand,” she said, “you can eat what you catch. Unless you’re one of those catch-and-release guys. Keller? What brought this up, and don’t tell me about Sheridan Bingham.”
“Well, something could happen.”
“Have you got a bad feeling, Keller? A premonition?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly. Is that a yes or a no?”
“Things happen to people, Dot. They get hit by buses.”
“So be careful crossing streets.”
“Or, well, the work I do. I don’t usually think of it as dangerous, but I suppose it is.”
“It’s usually dangerous for other people. But I suppose the life insurance companies would consider you to be in a high-risk category.”
“Or I could get arrested. Last time out I wound up talking to the police. I initiated it, and they never came close to suspecting me of anything, but it gets your attention, when you go and talk to the police.”
“I can see where it would.”
“If I get killed,” he said, “go straight to my apartment and grab the albums. If I just disappear, if you don’t hear from me and can’t get in touch with me, do the same thing, but in that case just hold on to them for a while on the chance that I’m all right. You can always sell them somewhere down the line. Same thing goes if I get arrested.”
“If you get arrested,” she said, “your stamps can shift for themselves. I’m not going anywhere near them.”
“Why not?”
“Because as soon as I get the news I’ll be throwing things in a suitcase and rushing to catch the next flight to Brazil. I want to be long gone before you rat me out.”
“You honestly think I would do that?”
“Keller,” she said, “welcome to the twenty-first century. Even Mafia guys rat each other out. They’d be charging you with murder, and your only way out would be to cut a deal and give up the client, and you probably wouldn’t know who that was. But you know who I am, and that might be enough to save you from the needle.”
He thought it over, shook his head. “I’d rather have the needle.”
“Than give me up? I’m touched, Keller, and you can say that now, and you can even mean it, but-”
“I’d rather have the needle than do time in prison.”
“Oh.”
“And if I did give you up,” he said, “it wouldn’t be for weeks, maybe months. You’d have plenty of time to sell the stamps and close the brokerage account. You could even put this house on the market.”
“I wonder what it would bring. There’s no mortgage, and the real estate market’s sky high. It’s better than stamps, and one thing about houses, you don’t have to paste them in a book.” She looked at him and frowned. “Keller,” she said, “is there something you’re not telling me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re not planning something foolish, are you?”
“Something foolish?”
“You know.”
“What, like killing myself? No, of course not.”
“But you think something might happen to you.”
“Sooner or later,” he said, “something happens to everybody.”
“Well, I guess that’s true.”
“I have health insurance,” he said, “and it’s not because I expect to get sick. I mean, I never get sick. But most people do get sick sooner or later, and this way I don’t have to worry about it. And now I won’t have to worry about what happens to my stamps, because you’ll take care of them.”
“What gets me,” she said, “is the way you showed up here today. I left you a message, and you never got it, but you came anyway.”
“Well, I wanted to have this conversation, and-”
“What we haven’t talked about,” she said, “is why I left you a message.”
“Oh.”
“I got an express shipment.”
“Oh.”
“Remember Al?”
It took him a minute, but then he did remember. “He sent us money.”
“He did indeed.”
“A long time ago.”
“Donkey’s years, whatever that means. It sounds even longer than dog years.”
“Prepayment for a job,” he said, “but then there never was a job, and I sort of forgot about him.”
“So did I. I figured either he changed his mind or he died, and either way we could just keep the money and forget about it.”
“Don’t tell me he sent us more money.”
She shook her head. “No money. Just a name and an address and a photograph and some newspaper clippings.”
“And the photograph is of somebody he wants taken care of.”
“Well, it’s not a postcard from the Grand Canyon. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to send him his money back.”
“You’re spooked,” he said.
“You’re not? We don’t hear from him and then we do, and it’s the same day you decide your stamps are going to outlive you? No, don’t explain. You’ve got the heebie-jeebies, and all of a sudden here’s Just-Call-Me-Al with something to have the heebie-jeebies about. Dammit, you know how I feel about sending money back.”
“You’re against it.”
“But this time I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I can’t. Because I don’t know who the son of a bitch is or where he lives. You know what we could do?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Zip, zero, nada. If he wants the money back, let him ask for it and tell us where to send it.”
“And in the meantime we just wait to hear from him?”
“Why not?”
“And he waits for me to do the job, and I don’t.”
“Right.”
He thought about it. “That’s an awful lot of waiting,” he said. “You said he sent a photo.”
“And some clippings. Hang on.”
He read the clippings, studied the photograph, memorized the name and address. “ Albuquerque,” he said.
“You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“A long time ago. Is that where Al lives?”
“A my name is Alice, my husband’s name is Al, we live in Albuquerque and we raise alpacas. Don’t look at me like that, Keller. It’s a rhyme to jump rope to. If you’d ever been a little girl you’d be familiar with it. I don’t know where he lives. He sent the FedEx from Denver.”
“Oh.”
“Which doesn’t necessarily prove he lives there, either. Why don’t I just file all this crap under F?”
“Why F?”
“So we can Forget About It. But you don’t want to, do you?”
“There may be a direct flight,” he said, “but you know what I think I’ll do? I think I’ll fly American through Dallas.”
“I don’t think you should go at all.”
“I want to get it over with,” he told her. “I don’t want to sit around waiting for something to happen.”
There was no reason to expect anyone to meet his flight. Still, he took a long look at the dozen or so men waiting with hand-lettered signs between the security gates and the baggage claim. He read the signs, thinking he might see one with a familiar name on it-NOSCAASI, or BOGART, or even KELLER. He didn’t, but he evidently stared hard at a stoop-shouldered man waiting for a Mr. Brenner, because the man stared just as hard back at him. Keller drew his eyes away and kept walking. He felt the man’s eyes tracking him as he headed for the Hertz desk.
He’d made reservations at three different motels located at consecutive exits along I-40, and he went to them in turn and checked in at each one under a different name, paying cash in advance for a week’s stay. He showered in the first one, left the bed there and in the second motel looking as though it had been slept in, and, in the third motel, stationed himself in front of the television set for an hour or so, flipping back and forth between CNN and one of the sports channels.
He didn’t unpack, and took his carry-on with him when he returned to the car. He ate at a Denny’s, then managed to find an address just off Indian School Road. All the houses were of adobe, but the neighborhood was otherwise a mixed one. Small lots held yellow-brown cubes that looked as though they’d been assembled in a weekend by the owner and a couple of his pals, while other lots were several acres in size, boasting oversize homes designed by architects and elegantly landscaped.
The house he was looking for, with a shack on one side and a Mc-Mansion on the other, was more manor house than shanty, but a good deal less grand than some of its neighbors. The adobe construction allowed for curves and arches, and the overall effect was pleasing. It looked, he decided, like a house in which one could lead a pleasant and comfortable life.
Keller wondered what Warren Heggman had done to create such a pleasant and comfortable life for himself, and wondered too why someone wanted that life brought to a close. He looked down at the passenger seat, from which the man’s photo looked back at him. He had a long narrow face, a high forehead. In his forties, Keller thought, or maybe his early fifties.
Keller circled the block, pulled up at the curb across the street from the Heggman house. The garage door was closed, so there was no telling if Heggman was home, but there were lights on, which suggested that he probably was.
It didn’t matter. He’d seen the place, he told himself, and now he should return to one of his motel rooms and get a night’s sleep. Then in the morning he could stake the place out and familiarize himself with Heggman’s routine. After a few days he’d be able to work out the best way to get at the man, and in the meantime he’d have equipped himself with a suitable weapon, and then, before too many more days had passed, he could do the job.
He drove on. Then, barely aware of what he was doing, he circled the block one more time and pulled into Heggman’s driveway.
Three motel rooms, he thought. Three different names. Pussyfooting around, trying to cover his tracks. Why?
Look at Sheridan Bingham, for God’s sake. Holed up in a vault in the middle of a house full of bodyguards, and the only time he could relax was when he got out of there and flew to San Francisco. And what was waiting for him there?
He got out of the car, walked to the front door, rang the bell.
“I thought it might be you,” Dot said. “How’s the weather in Albuquerque?”
“I’m in White Plains,” he said.
“That’s funny,” she said. “So am I. What do you mean, you’re in White Plains?”
“At the train station.”
“Well, sit tight,” she said. “I’ll pick you up.”
“I’ll take a cab. Really, it’s easier.”
The cab dropped him in front of her house, and she was waiting for him on the porch. “You pruned the spider plant,” he said. “I think it looks better that way, with both of them the same size.”
“The baby I lopped off,” she said, “is in the sunroom in another pot. Once you start with plants it never ends. If you were going to take a cab, why did you bother calling?”
“Well, I came out without calling the other day, and it took you by surprise.”
“You’re always taking me by surprise,” she said. “Some surprises are better than others. I’m surprised you didn’t go to Albuquerque, but I have to tell you I’m just as glad.”
“You are?”
“I was worried about you,” she said. “All that business about your stamp collection. I kept thinking of different ways it could go wrong.”
“So did I.”
“But when you left here the other day you were bound and determined to go. What changed your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“Huh?”
“I went.”
“You looked it over and decided to pull the plug on it?”
He held up a hand. “I went there,” he said, “and I did the job, and I came back.”
“You did the job?”
“Sure.”
“But-”
“I figured it would take a week,” he said, “or maybe as much as two. And then, I don’t know, I decided to take the bull by the horns.”
“Do you suppose anybody ever did that? Literally took hold of a bull by the horns?”
“Probably. Anything you can think of, somebody tried it.”
“Well, I guess you’re right about that.”
“I drove over there, I parked in his driveway, and I rang his bell.”
“The day before yesterday,” she said, “you were sitting in my kitchen.”
“I flew out yesterday morning, and it was around dinner when I went to his house. I’d already eaten, I stopped at a Denny’s. They gave me more food than I could finish.”
“So you took a doggie bag to share with Heggler.”
“Heggman, and no, it was this Breakfast Anytime special, and I didn’t want a doggie bag full of eggs and pancakes. I rang the bell and the thought occurred to me that I’d probably be dead within the hour.”
“But you rang the bell anyway.”
“And he opened the door. He looked disappointed to see me.”
“You must get that a lot, Keller.”
“He thought I was one of his wife’s lawyers. He was saying something about a prenup.”
“If he had one,” Dot said, “and if it was a good one, it’d do for a motive.”
“I hit him.”
“You hit him?”
“I didn’t plan it,” he said. “I didn’t plan any of it. Dot, I had three different motel rooms reserved and I checked into all of them, so I could move around and keep out of sight. And then I went straight to the guy’s house and rang his bell, and without even stopping to close the door I made a fist and hit him in the pit of the stomach.”
“And?”
He looked away. “He folded, and I kicked him, and then, well, I got hold of him and broke his neck.”
“Just like that.”
“He was dead, and there were no fingerprints to wipe off because I hadn’t been there long enough to touch anything. I didn’t even have to touch the doorknob because the door still wasn’t shut, so I walked through it, and as I did I heard a voice from upstairs. ‘ Warren? Is everything all right?’”
“His wife? No, you already said she was divorcing him.”
“It was a woman’s voice, though.”
“Maybe she was the reason his wife was divorcing him.”
“Who knows? I kept going. I got in the car and drove straight to the airport.”
“And nobody saw you?”
“I don’t think so. If anybody got the plate number, well, I rented it under another name. I turned the car in, and I got a flight to L.A. and a red-eye home.”
“And here you are.”
“Here I am,” he agreed. “I stopped at my apartment to shower and shave and change clothes, and then I walked over to Grand Central and caught a train. I was going to call.”
“You did call, remember?”
“I mean I was going to call from my apartment and fill you in over the phone. But I decided to come out instead.”
“And here you are. Damn, I keep saying that, don’t I? I’m evidently having trouble taking it all in. Remember that baseball player?”
“Floyd Turnbull.”
“You followed him around for an entire season.”
“It wasn’t that long.”
“The hell it wasn’t. You stopped along the way to kill other people, but you took your sweet time with Turnbull.”
“Well.”
“This time,” she said, “with both of us spooked, and every reason in the world to play it safe, you were in and out in nothing flat. I was afraid you were being set up.”
“So was I.”
“If you managed to kill him, there’d be somebody waiting to kill you.”
“That’s why I booked all those motel rooms.”
“Come on in,” she said. “Sit down. I’ll pour us each a glass of iced tea. Or would you rather have a cup of coffee?”
“I hate the red-eye,” he said. “I thought about getting a room at an airport hotel near LAX and getting a night’s sleep before flying home. But I realized I wasn’t going to sleep anyway, and if I was going to be awake I might as well be on my way home. I did some thinking on the plane.”
“And?”
“I decided we’d picked the wrong job to worry about. We had a client who’d stayed completely out of sight. We didn’t know where he lived, let alone who he is. He wouldn’t have to kill me to stay in the clear, because he’d been completely in the clear all along.”
“He could kill you to avoid having to pay you,” she said, “but he’s in the clear in that respect, too. We never discussed money. He just sent some, and if he figures that’s payment in full, what am I going to do about it? It’s not as though I could send him a bill.”
“You think he’ll pay anything more?”
“I can’t imagine why he would,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean he won’t. If he does, fine. If not, that’s fine, too.”
“The reason I was worried,” he went on, “is that I got stirred up on the last job.”
“Bingham.”
He nodded. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about my stamp collection. I guess I realized I was going to die someday. I mean, everybody does, right?”
“So they tell me.”
“And I knew that, and I thought I was used to the idea, but then I got haunted by the idea of my stamps being left behind. What would happen to them? I don’t have kids to worry about, or relatives, but it suddenly seemed very important to make arrangements for my stamp collection. And once I’d made arrangements, once we’d had that conversation-”
“And what a conversation it was.”
“-I had this sense that it was all taken care of, and now all that was left was for me to go out and meet my fate.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t let me pull the plug on the job.”
“If it was fate, what good would it do? Instead of going to Albuquerque I’d stay home, and when I went down to the corner for the paper an air conditioner would fall out of somebody’s window and kill me. That poor bastard Heggman, I don’t think he ever had a clue. He must have been dead before he could figure out what was happening to him.”
“You’re sure it was him?”
“He was at the right address,” he said, “and he looked just like his picture. But I wondered myself. Waiting for my flight, I kept thinking I should have asked him his name. And then of course I kept expecting the plane to crash.”
“Which one? The flight to Los Angeles or the red-eye?”
“Both of them. But the flights were fine. The cab ride in from JFK, the driver was a maniac, cutting everybody off, driving way too fast. But he got away with it.”
She nodded slowly, took a long look at him. “You must be exhausted,” she said.
“Sort of.”
“I’ll run you back to the station, and you go home and get some sleep. And maybe we should both think about packing it in.”
He shook his head.
“No?”
“No,” he said. “Because we don’t have enough money, not really. And even if we did, even if my end came to a million dollars, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I’ll go home,” he said, “and for the next week I’ll barely leave the house. I’ll sleep a lot and watch a lot of TV. And for a month or more I’ll go to movies and work out at the gym and work on my stamps, and it’ll be just the way it would be if I were retired, and I’ll enjoy it. And then sometime in the second month I’ll start feeling as though there’s something I ought to be doing.”
“I think I get the picture.”
“And then one of us will call the other, and it’ll turn out that there’s a job out there if I want it. And I’ll go like this-”
He pressed his wrists together.
“‘What time?’”
“There you go.”
“And you’ll go off to do the job,” she said, “thinking all the while that you’re really too old for this, and that you wish you could retire.”
“That sounds about right.”
She thought about it. “Well, okay, Keller,” she said. “I guess I can stand it as long as you can.”