16 Hitman (2 page)

In this case he had cause.

"A hitman.You're working for a hitman"

"No, I'm working for a schoolteacher."

"Who works as a hitman"

"I said hypothetically. "

"I said hypothetically. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said anything.
You're not getting me involved in your cockamamie schemes"

"What qualifies my scheme as cockamamie?"

"Your hypothetical hitman. Hell, just the fact you have to talk
in hypotheticals at all should tell you this is something you
shouldn't do."

"I have no choice."

"Why?"

"I've seen his face. If I refused, he'd have to kill me."

It's hard to shock Richard, but that did. His mouth fell open.
"Are you serious?"

I wasn't. I was joking. But the moment I said it, it seemed a distinct possibility. Apparently, schizophrenics shouldn't joke about
hitmen. A lesson learned too late.

I didn't want to look terrified in front of Richard. I settled back
into the depth of his overstuffed client's chair and tried to act nonchalant. "The problem is, this is basically a good guy."

"Who kills people?"

"He has that one personality flaw."

"Which you intend to overlook."

"Which I am not prepared to admit."

"Hypothetically."

"Oh, no, I'm genuinely not prepared to admit it."

Richard smiled, cocked his head. "I'm glad to see the color
return to your cheeks.You covered well, but the prospect of your
new client rubbing you out clearly took you aback"

"Wait till I tell him you're standing in the way of my working
for him."

Richard shrugged. "Nice try, but I doubt if he'd go for such
convoluted logic. That was what you were implying, right? That
he would rub me out to obtain your services. I'm sorry, but that's
too stupid to be scary."

"Yeah, look, I gotta give this guy an answer."

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"He can wait that long?"

"It's a casual hit. Not pressing. As a pro, he makes his own
schedule."

"So how will they know he's not doing it?"

"That's what I said. Apparently, there's a reasonable period of
time in which there is an expectation of success."

"I'm sure that's how he phrased it"

"Actually, the guy's an English teacher."

"I don't want to know."

"Right. Anyway, is there any reason why I shouldn't do this job?"

"Aside from sanity, logic, and a moral sense of right and wrong?"

"Yeah. Aside from that"

Richard steepled his fingers. "You have a job. You work for nie.
You may not count that as an obligation, but, trust nee, it is. I
depend on you"

"You have other operatives."

"Operatives? Did you really just say operatives?"

"You have other investigators."

"They're not nearly as good."

"Then I should make more money."

The suggestion was my usual conversation stopper, but Richard
steamed right through it. "You know you have to be in court."

"What?"

"You're testifying in the Fairbourne case. Or have you forgotten?"

"Of course I haven't forgotten" I certainly had. I never testify
in court, and when I do, it's no big deal, usually about serving
papers on the defendant. "Can't you get a continuance?"

"Oh, sure. I'll shoot right over to the hospital and tell the quadriplegic with the spinal cord injury who needs money for the
experimental surgery that could let him breathe on his own that
I'm terribly sorry, I hope he won't mind waiting, but my witness
has to help out a hitman"

"Boy, talk about loading an argument"

"You loaded it. I just pulled the trigger."

"That doesn't even make any sense, Richard"

"Maybe not, but it sounded good. The point is, you lose. No
way you can justify this one."

"Right," I said. "I'll just tell the widow with the two little children that I'm really sorry I couldn't keep her husband alive but I
had to be in court helping a negligence lawyer rip off an insurance
company.

Richard smiled. "You'd have made a good lawyer."

"I'm not ruthless enough."

"Too bad. So tell the guy you have to be in court"

"When?"

Richard consulted his Daily Planner. "Friday."

"This Friday?"

"No. Next week."

"Next week? No problem."

"Oh? You'll be done by then? What makes you think so?"

"Well, it stands to reason"

"It doesn't stand to reason. If the hit were going down, you'd be
done by then. No problem, piece of cake, the guy's dead, it's over.
But if the guy's not going to do the job, it's open-ended. It'll never
be done unless you fail. At which point either the mark will be
dead, the shooter will be dead, or you will be dead. Or some combination of the three. Any of which will terminate your employment. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?"

"Fair to whom?"

"So tell the guy you got a previous engagement, you're willing
to take the job, but you're busy next Friday."

"He may not like that."

"I know how he feels. Anyway, this job is apt to result in the
death of someone before then. In the event you aren't the one
deceased, you would be free to testify."

"And if it isn't ... ?"

Richard smiled his patented thin-lipped smile. It was what poker players would call a tell, heralding the arrival of the most
calmly delivered, devastatingly scathing sarcasm. "In the unlikely
event the matter is not resolved, don't you think that a person who
kills people for a living could manage to stay alive for a few hours
without relying on a private eye whose, dare I say, expertise is more
in the field of photography than self-defense?"

It occurred to nie, long about then, that I wasn't getting anywhere with Richard Rosenberg.

I decided to try Sergeant MacAullif.

After all, how bad could it be?

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

I hadn't expected MacAullif to be pleased. And he did not disappoint. A burly homicide cop who'd shared in some of my adventures, Sergeant MacAullif was always torn between helping me out
and shoving me through a wall. Today he seemed to be leaning
toward the latter.

"Well, what would you like me to have done?"

"Did the phrase `No, I don't kill people' ever occur to you?"

"That's a clause."

"What?"

"It has a subject and a predicate."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Nothing. I've just been brushing up on my English grammar
lately."

"Well, bully for you. Would the motherfucking, cocksucking,
sequence of words `No, I don't kill people' have any significance to
you other than its grammatical classification?"

"I'm not going to kill anyone."

"Or associate with those who do."

"You associate with those who do."

"I arrest those who do. I don't accept employment from them."

"Bullshit, MacAullif. What about undercover cops? Don't they
get hired by dope-dealing psychokillers all the time?"

MacAullif exhaled through clenched teeth, emitting a highpitched whistle. Dogs in Coney Island perked their heads up.
"Why are you here?"

"I told you. I have a hypothetical problem. I thought it would
interest you."

"Well, think again. I'm a little busy this morning, what with actual
homicides, not hypothetical ones that haven't even happened yet."

"You're saying I shouldn't have brought you this?"

"If wishes were horses."

"Hey, I'm the good guy here, keeping John Q. Public alive."

"No, you're the bad guy. In my office with something I don't
wanna hear. Asking for help I don't wanna give."

"I didn't ask for help."

"Then why are you here?"

"Well, actually . .

"Oh, shit."

"You have any mob connections?"

"I've seen The Godfather."

"That isn't what I meant."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a little tricky."

"You're lucky I don't run you in. That's probably what I
should do. Arrest you, put you in the box, and sweat it out of
you."

"Sweat what out of me? I'm willing to tell you the whole thing."

"I don't want to know the whole thing."

"You're not making any sense. What do you want?"

"You could get out of my office.You could pretend you never came. You could go about your business and I could go about
mine. "

"It wouldn't bother you that you ignored this lead?"

"A hypothetical? Of course not"

"Okay."

I got up, headed for the door.

"Hey! Where you going?"

"I'm getting out of your office, like you said"

"Come back here!"

I went back and sat down.

MacAullif glowered at me.

"So," I said. "What do you want to know?"

"Never mind the hypothetical bullshit. Why are you here?
What do you want?"

"I assume you're not going to assign a cop to help me."

"That would be a good guess"

"You have resources I don't have. In terms of checking
people out."

"Soy

"If I were to give you a name, you'd be able to run it down, see
if the guy was connected, and, if so, to whom."

"To whom? You really are watching your grammar."

"You'd be able to tell me whether this was a person I should be
dealing with."

"I can tell you right now, this is a person you shouldn't be
dealing with under any circumstances"

"You don't know the name I'm going to give you."

"You mean it isn't him?"

"I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it isn't. Just someone I want
you to check out. There's no reason why you shouldn't. It might
be totally unrelated to what we've been discussing."

"And what have we been discussing?"

"Nothing. We've been talking hypothetically."

MacAullif opened his desk drawer, took out a cigar, and
drummed it on the desk, a habit he had when I was pissing him
off. He druninied cigars on his desk a lot. "Why do you want me
to trace this name?"

"l)o you want to know?"

"Of course I do."

"Guy wants to marry my daughter. I want to see if he's a
good risk"

"You haven't got a daughter."

"Damn. It sounded so plausible."

"What's the name?"

"Martin Kessler."

"That's the guy we've been talking about?"

"Obviously not."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I haven't got a daughter"

"Go on. Get the hell out of my office."

"You'll trace the name?"

"I'm not saying that"

"What are you saying?"

"I'll like you better when you're gone."

I got the hell out of his office.

"WHY DOES HE WANT YOU?"

Alice put her finger right on it. Which was not surprising. My
wife has a knack of zeroing in on the heart of any issue. Or at least
she appears to. When Alice is on a roll, I can barely get a word in
edgewise. Not that it would do me any good. Alice can argue that
black is white or up is down so convincingly that I haven't a prayer
of contradicting her. Indeed, she is the master of the Socratic
method, leading me though a series of questions that come to the
inevitable conclusion. Hers. She is so good at this that the only way
I know to deal with her is to attempt to figure out what her position
is and then adopt it, leaving her nothing to push against. This is fine
in theory, but even in such situations Alice can prove me wrong.

"He wants me because-"

"No, he doesn't," Alice declared, and I knew I was in trouble.

Alice was at the computer multitasking, and she had so many
screens open I had no idea what she was up to. Not that I cared. I was somewhat distracted by the fact Alice was dressed in a T-shirt
and panties. Our son, Tommie, has gone off to college, and we are
empty-nesting. To Alice, it means dressing casually. To me, it means
something else entirely, though Alice dressing casually certainly has
something to do with it. And tends to cloud my judgment.

Anyway, I hadn't a prayer. Under any circumstances, Alice is a
formidable opponent. In a T-shirt and panties she is invincible.

"You don't even know what I was going to say," I protested.

"It doesn't matter.You're wrong. That's not why he wants you."

"Okay, why does he?"

"I have no idea."

"Then how do you know I'm wrong?"

"How do I know anything? Stanley, there's not a reason under
the sun that you can come up with for why this guy wants to hire
you that could be anywhere close to the truth"

"I dispute that"

"Be my guest"

"Excuse one?"

"Go ahead. Make your case. Why do you think you're right?"

"Alice-"

"I can't wait to hear this."

"I didn't say I thought I was right"

"You think you're wrong?"

I didn't say that either"

"Well, you're not advancing a very forceful opinion. Can you
see why I'd have trouble believing it?"

"Alice, I have no idea why he wants to hire me. I can think of
several reasons why he might"

"Big deal. So can I"

"For instance?"

"He doesn't know you're a wimp and thinks you can help him"

"I'm surprised you married a man of whom you had so low an
opinion.

"I didn't marry a macho jerk. I married an actor. If I'd
known you were going to become a private eye, I might have
reconsidered"

"You're arguing on both sides of the issue"

"No, I'm not."

"You're faulting me for not being macho and saying you'd hate
me if I were."

"What's your point?"

I had no idea. All I knew was I was stuck in an argument from
which there was no way out with the possible exception of
walking the dog. Unfortunately, Zelda was curled up on the couch
sound asleep. I'd have to poke her to walk her.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. This was a good tactic,
courteous, compliant, eager to do the other's will. Alice hates it,
since its purpose is to force her to venture an opinion. Alice's opinions are as elusive as they are strong. I would have more luck pinning a greased pig. The pig, at least, couldn't talk its way out of it.