Hit Man

  A few days later Keller was sitting on a park bench in Washington Square. He folded his newspaper and walked over to a dark-haired woman wearing a blazer and a beret. “Excuse me,” he said, “but isn’t that an Australian cattle dog?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “It’s a handsome animal,” he said. “You don’t see many of them.”

  “Most people think he’s a mutt. It’s such an esoteric breed. Do you own one yourself?”

  “I did. My ex-wife got custody.”

  “How sad for you.”

  “Sadder still for the dog. His name was Soldier. Is Soldier, unless she’s gone and changed it.”

  “This fellow’s name is Nelson. That’s his call name. Of course the name on his papers is a real mouthful.”

  “Do you show him?”

  “He’s seen it all,” she said. “You can’t show him a thing.”

  “I went down to the Village last week,” Keller said, “and the damnedest thing happened. I met a woman in the park.”

  “Is that the damnedest thing?”

  “Well, it’s unusual for me. I meet women at bars and parties, or someone introduces us. But we met and talked, and then I happened to run into her the following morning. I bought her a cappuccino.”

  “You just happened to run into her on two successive days.”

  “Yes.”

  “In the Village.”

  “It’s where I live.”

  Breen frowned. “You shouldn’t be seen with her, should you?”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

  “All it’s cost me so far,” Keller said, “is the price of a cappuccino.”

  “I thought we had an understanding.”

  “An understanding?”

  “You don’t live in the Village,” Breen said. “I know where you live. Don’t look so surprised. The first time you left here I watched you from the window. You behaved as though you were trying to avoid being followed. So I bided my time, and when you stopped taking precautions, that’s when I followed you. It wasn’t that difficult.”

  “Why follow me?”

  “To find out who you were. Your name is Keller, you live at 865 First Avenue. I already knew what you were. Anybody might have known just from listening to your dreams. And paying in cash, and all of these sudden business trips. I still don’t know who employs you, the crime bosses or the government, but then what difference does it make? Have you been to bed with my wife?”

  “Your ex-wife.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Christ. And were you able to perform?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why the smile?”

  “I was just thinking,” Keller said, “that it was quite a performance.”

  Breen was silent for a long moment, his eyes fixed on a spot above and to the right of Keller’s shoulder. Then he said, “This is profoundly disappointing. I had hoped you would find the strength to transcend the Oedipal myth, not merely reenact it. You’ve had fun, haven’t you? What a naughty little boy you’ve been! What a triumph you’ve scored over your symbolic father! You’ve taken his woman to bed. No doubt you have visions of getting her pregnant, so that she can give you what she so cruelly denied him. Eh?”

  “Never occurred to me.”

  “It would, sooner or later.” Breen leaned forward, concern showing on his face. “I hate to see you sabotaging your own therapeutic process this way,” he said. “You were doing so well.”

  From the bedroom window you could look down at Washington Square Park. There were plenty of dogs there now, but none of them were Australian cattle dogs.

  “Some view,” Keller said. “Some apartment.”

  “Believe me,” she said, “I earned it. You’re getting dressed. Going somewhere?”

  “Just feeling a little restless. Okay if I take Nelson for a walk?”

  “You’re spoiling him,” she said. “You’re spoiling both of us.”

  On a Wednesday morning, Keller took a cab to La Guardia and a plane to St. Louis. He had a cup of coffee with an associate of the man in White Plains and caught an evening flight back to New York. He caught another cab and went directly to the apartment building at the foot of Fifth Avenue.

  “I’m Peter Stone,” he told the doorman. “I believe Mrs. Breen is expecting me.”

  The doorman stared.

  “Mrs. Breen,” Keller said. “In Seventeen-J.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Is something the matter?”

  “I guess you haven’t heard,” the doorman said. “I wish it wasn’t me that had to tell you.”

  * * *

  “You killed her,” he said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Breen told him. “She killed herself. She threw herself out the window. If you want my professional opinion, she was suffering from depression.”

  “If you want my professional opinion,” Keller said, “she had help.”

  “I wouldn’t advance that argument if I were you,” Breen said. “If the police were to look for a murderer, they might look long and hard at Mr. Stone-hyphen-Keller, the stone killer. And I might have to tell them how the usual process of transference went awry, how you became obsessed with me and my personal life, how I couldn’t seem to dissuade you from some inane plan to reverse the Oedipal complex. And then they might ask you why you employ aliases, and just how you make your living, and . . . do you see why it might be best to let sleeping dogs lie?”

  As if on cue, the dog stepped out from behind the desk. He caught sight of Keller and his tail began to wag.

  “Sit,” Breen said. “You see? He’s well trained. You might take a seat yourself.”

  “I’ll stand. You killed her, and then you walked off with the dog, and—”

  Breen sighed. “The police found the dog in the apartment, whimpering in front of the open window. After I went down and identified the body and told them about her previous suicide attempts, I volunteered to take the dog home with me. There was no one else to look after it.”

  “I would have taken him,” Keller said.

  “But that won’t be necessary, will it? You won’t be called upon to walk my dog or make love to my wife or bed down in my apartment. Your services are no longer required.” Breen seemed to recoil at the harshness of his own words. His face softened. “You’ll be able to get back to the far more important business of therapy. In fact”—he indicated the couch—“why not stretch out right now?”

  “That’s not a bad idea. First, though, could you put the dog in the other room?”

  “Not afraid he’ll interrupt, are you? Just a little joke. He can wait for us in the outer office. There you go, Nelson. Good dog. . . . Oh, no. How dare you bring a gun to this office? Put that down immediately.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “For God’s sake, why kill me? I’m not your father. I’m your therapist. It makes no sense for you to kill me. You’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose. It’s completely irrational. It’s worse than that, it’s neurotically self-destructive.”

  “I guess I’m not cured yet.”

  “What’s that, gallows humor? But it happens to be true. You’re a long way from cured, my friend. As a matter of fact, I would say you’re approaching a psychotherapeutic crisis. How will you get through it if you shoot me?”

  Keller went to the window, flung it wide open. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he said.

  “I’ve never been the least bit suicidal,” Breen said, pressing his back against a wall of bookshelves. “Never.”

  “You’ve grown despondent over the death of your ex-wife.”

  “That’s sickening, just sickening. And who would believe it?”

  “We’ll see,” Keller told him. “As far as the therapeutic crisis is concerned, well, we’ll see about that, too. I’ll think of something.”

  The woman at the animal shelter said, “Talk about coincidenc
e. One day you come in and put your name down for an Australian cattle dog. You know, that’s a very uncommon breed in this country.”

  “You don’t see many of them.”

  “And what came in this morning? A perfectly lovely Australian cattle dog. You could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer. Isn’t he a beauty?”

  “He certainly is.”

  “He’s been whimpering ever since he got here. It’s very sad, his owner died and there was nobody to keep him. My goodness, look how he went right to you! I think he likes you.”

  “I’d say we were made for each other.”

  “I can almost believe it. His name is Nelson, but of course you can change it.”

  “Nelson,” he said. The dog’s ears perked up. Keller reached to give him a scratch. “No, I don’t think I’ll have to change it. Who was Nelson, anyway? Some kind of English hero, wasn’t he? A famous general or something?”

  “I think an admiral. Commander of the British fleet, if I remember correctly. Remember? The Battle of Trafalgar Square?”

  “It rings a muted bell,” he said. “Not a soldier but a sailor. Well, that’s close enough, wouldn’t you say? Now I suppose there’s an adoption fee to pay, and some papers to fill out.”

  When they’d handled that part she said, “I still can’t get over it. The coincidence and all.”

  “I knew a man once,” Keller said, “who insisted there was no such thing as a coincidence or an accident.”

  “Well, I wonder how he’d explain this.”

  “I’d like to hear him try,” Keller said. “Let’s go, Nelson. Good boy.”

  4

  Dogs Walked, Plants Watered

  “Now here’s my situation,” Keller said. “Ordinarily I have plenty of free time. I take Nelson for a minimum of two long walks a day, and sometimes when the weather’s nice we’ll be out all afternoon. It’s a pleasure for me, and he’s tireless, literally tireless. He’s an Australian cattle dog, and the breed was developed to drive herds of cattle vast distances. You could probably walk him to Yonkers and back and he’d still be raring to go.”

  “I’ve never been to Yonkers,” the girl said.

  Neither had Keller, but he had passed through it often enough on the way to and from White Plains. There was no need to mention this.

  “The thing is,” he went on, “I sometimes have to travel on business, and I don’t get much in the way of advance warning. I get a phone call, and two hours later I’m on a plane halfway across the country, and I may not get back for two weeks. Last time I boarded Nelson, and I don’t want to do that again.”

  “No.”

  “Aside from the fact that the kennels expect you to make reservations a week in advance,” he said, “I think it’s rotten for the dog. Last time, well, he was different when I picked him up. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was days before he was his old self again.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “So I’d like to be able call you,” he said, “when I find out I have to travel. You could come in every day and feed him and give him fresh water and take him for a walk twice a day. That’s the kind of thing you could do, right?”

  “It’s what I do,” she said. “I have regular clients who don’t have the time to give their pets enough attention, and I have other clients who hire me just when they go out of town, and I’ll come to their houses and take care of their pets and their houseplants.”

  “But in the meantime,” Keller said, “I thought you and Nelson ought to get to know each other, because who knows how he’ll react if I just disappear one day and a few hours later you turn up and enter the apartment? He’s pretty territorial.”

  “But if Nelson and I already knew each other—”

  “That’s what I was getting at,” he said. “Suppose you were to walk him, I don’t know, twice a week? He’s not stupid, he’d get the idea right away. Then, by the time I had to leave town, you’d already be an old friend. He wouldn’t go nuts when you tried to enter the apartment or resist when you tried to lead him out of it. Does that make sense to you? And what would be a fair price?”

  They worked it out. She would walk Nelson for a full hour twice a week, on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons, and for this Keller would pay her fifty dollars a week. Then, when Keller was out of town, she would get fifty dollars a day, in return for which she would see to Nelson’s food and water and walk him twice daily.

  “Why don’t we start now?” she suggested. “How about it, Nelson? Want to go for a walk?” The dog recognized the word but looked uncertain. “Walk, walk, walk!” she said, and his tail set to wagging.

  When they were out the door Keller began to worry. Suppose she never brought the dog back? Then what?

  Dogs Walked, Plants Watered, the notice had read. Responsible Young Woman Will Provide Quality Care for Your Flora and Fauna. Call Andria.

  The notice had appeared on the community bulletin board at the neighborhood Gristede’s, where Keller bought Grape-Nuts for himself and Milk-Bone for Nelson. There had been a phone number, and he had copied it down and dialed it, and now his dog was in the care and custody of this allegedly responsible young woman, and all he really knew about her was that she didn’t know how to spell her own name. Suppose she let Nelson off the leash? Suppose she sold him to vivisectionists? Suppose she fell in love with him and never brought him back?

  Keller went into the bathroom and stared hard at himself in the mirror. “Grow up,” he said sternly.

  An hour and ten minutes after they’d left, Nelson and Andria returned. “He’s a pleasure to walk,” she said. “No, don’t pay me for today. It would be like paying an actor for an audition. You can start paying me on Tuesday. Incidentally, it’s only fair to tell you that the payment you suggested is higher than my usual rates.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “You’re sure? Well, thanks, because I can use it. I’ll see you Tuesday morning.”

  She showed up Tuesday morning, and again Friday afternoon. When she brought Nelson back on Friday she asked Keller if he wanted a full report.

  “On what?” he wondered.

  “On our walk,” she said. “On what he did. You know.”

  “Did he bite anyone? Did he come up with a really good recipe for chili?”

  “Some owners want you to give them a tree-by-tree report.”

  “Hey, call me irresponsible,” Keller said, “but I figure there are things we’re not meant to know.”

  After a couple of weeks he gave her a key. “Because there’s no reason for me to stick around just to let you in,” he said. “If I’m not going to be here I’ll leave the money in an envelope on the desk.” A week later he forced himself to leave the apartment half an hour before she was due to arrive. When he printed her name in block capitals on the envelope it looked strange to him, and the next time he saw her he raised the subject. “The notice you posted had your name spelled with an I,” he said. “Is that how you spell it or was it a misprint?”

  “Both,” she said. “I originally spelled it with an E, like everybody else in the world, but people tended to give it the European pronunciation, uhn-DRAY-uh, and I hate that. This way they mostly say it right, ANN-dree-uh, although now I get the occasional person who says uhn-DRY-uh, which doesn’t even sound like a name. I’d probably be better off changing my name altogether.”

  “That seems extreme.”

  “Do you think so? I’ve changed it every year or so since I was sixteen. I’m forever running possible names through my mind. What do you think of Hastings?”

  “Distinctive.”

  “Right, but is it the direction I want to go? That’s what I can’t decide. I’ve also been giving some consideration to Jane, and you can’t even compare the two, can you?”

  “Apples and oranges,” Keller said.

  “When the time comes,” Andria said, “I’ll know what to do.”

  One morning Keller left the house with Nelson a few minutes after nine and
didn’t get home until almost one. He was unhooking Nelson’s leash when the phone rang. Dot said, “Keller, I miss you, I haven’t seen you in ages. I wish you’d come see me sometime.”

  “One of these days,” he said.

  He filled Nelson’s water dish, then went out and caught a cab to Grand Central and a train to White Plains. There was no car waiting for him, so he found a taxi to take him to the old Victorian house on Taunton Place. Dot was on the porch, wearing a floral print housedress and sipping a tall glass of iced tea. “He’s upstairs,” she said, “but he’s got somebody with him. Sit down, pour some iced tea for yourself. It’s a hot one, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not that bad,” he said, taking a chair, pouring from the Thermos jug into a glass with Wilma Flintstone depicted on its side. “I think Nelson likes the heat.”

  “A few months ago you were saying he liked the cold.”

  “I think he likes weather,” Keller said. “He’d probably like an earthquake, if we had one.” He thought about it. “I might be wrong about that,” he conceded. “I don’t think he’d feel very secure in an earthquake.”

  “Neither would I, Keller. Am I ever going to meet Nelson the Wonder Dog? Why don’t you bring him out here sometime?”

  “Someday.” He turned her glass so that he could see the picture on it. “Pebbles,” he said. A buzzer sounded, one long and two short. “What was it Fred used to say? It’s driving me crazy. I can hear him saying it but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “Yabba dabba do?”

  “Yabba dabba do, that’s it. There was a song, ‘Aba Daba Honeymoon,’ but I don’t suppose it had anything to do with Fred Flintstone.”

  Dot gave him a look. “That buzzer means he’s ready for you,” she said. “No rush, you can finish your tea. Or take it with you.”

  “Yabba dabba do,” Keller said.

  Someone drove him to the station and twenty minutes later he was on the train to New York. As soon as he got home he called Andria. He started to dial the number that had appeared on her notice at Gristede’s, then remembered what she’d told him the previous Tuesday or the Friday before, whenever it was. She had moved and didn’t have a new phone yet. Meanwhile she had a beeper.