“He probably followed me around some.”

“While you bought stamps and drove over the bridge to Indiana. Is that what’s on the other side of the river? Indiana?”

“That’s right.”

“And then you finally made your move on Hirschhorn, and he was close enough to know about it, and then what? He followed you back to the motel?”

“He wouldn’t have had to follow too close. He knew where I was going.”

“So you both drove there, and you went to your new room and he went to the old one.”

“I parked in back, near the old room,” he remembered. “Out of habit, I guess. He’d have seen the car and known I was home for the night. Then he gave me a little time to unwind and go to bed, and then he came calling.”

“Had a key?”

“Or had enough tradecraft to get through a motel room lock without one. Which isn’t the hardest thing in the world.”

“He goes in and there’s two heads on the pillow. He must figure you got lucky.”

“I guess.”

“It’s dark, so he doesn’t notice that neither head is yours. Doesn’t he turn on the light afterward? You’d think he’d want the chance to admire his work.”

“He might.”

“But not necessarily?”

“Why bother, if he knows he nailed both parties? But if he does put the light on, then what?”

“He’s been following you around all this time, Keller, he must know what you look like.”

“The man he shot might look enough like me to pass,” he said, “especially with his face in a pillow and two bullets in his head. But say he realizes his mistake. What’s he going to do? Go door-to-door looking for me?”

“He can’t do that.”

“Odds are he figures I dumped the car, checked out, somebody drove me to the airport and I’m gone. One way or another he missed me. But my guess is he never turned on the light and never knew he screwed up until he read about it the next day in the paper.”

“I’m trying to sort this out,” she said, “and it’s not easy. You want some iced tea?”

“Sure, but don’t get up. I’ll get it.”

“No, it helps me think if I move around a little. What did you do after Louisville?”

“Came home and lived my life.”

“In terms of work, I mean. There was the job in New York, which was the one I had the bad feeling about, because I should have turned it down. Where was our friend while you were busy with that one?”

“No idea.”

“If he got on you here in the city, even if he missed you he’d wind up knowing your name and address. But nothing like that happened. Keller, what do you figure gets him off and running? What’s his wake-up call?”

“It has to be he learns a contract’s been put out and a hit’s going down.”

“So he starts off knowing who the subject is, but not the shooter.”

“Has to be.”

“And he stakes out the subject, or he picks up the shooter coming in, like he did with you in Louisville. New York, that artist, maybe he didn’t get wind of the contract in the first place.”

“Maybe not.”

“Or he did, but he couldn’t pick you up on the way in. Nobody met you, nobody fingered the artist. What was his name?”

“Niswander.”

“You showed up at the opening.”

“Along with half the freeloaders in Lower Manhattan,” he said.

“If he staked out Niswander, waiting for somebody to hit him, well, he’s still waiting, because you went and knocked off the client instead. What came after that?”

“ Tampa.”

“ Tampa. Something something beach.”

“ Indian Rocks Beach.”

“You were down and back the same day. Even if he was ready to play, it was over and done with before he could have drawn a bead on you. And then comes Boston, and that brings us up-to-date, unless I’m forgetting something.”

“I think that covers it.”

“You saw him in Boston, isn’t that what you said? Getting out of a cab and looking at Thurnauer’s house?”

“It wasn’t Thurnauer’s place. I think it was the girl’s.”

“I’m glad you cleared that up. Point is you saw him, didn’t you?”

“I saw somebody. Maybe it was him and maybe not.”

“Here’s the real question. Was it somebody you saw before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like in Louisville, standing around with a sign.”

“When I saw him get out of the cab,” he said, “I assumed it was Thurnauer. What did I see? A guy in a hat and coat, all bundled up and trying not to get soaked. And I saw him from the back. I never got a look at his face.”

“So maybe it was the same guy and maybe it wasn’t.”

“Helps a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Getting back to Louisville,” she said. “Did you get a good look at him then?”

“Did I look at him? Yes. Can I picture him now? No, not really. I got a better look at the sign he was holding.”

“That’s not much help, Keller. He’s probably not still carrying it.”

“He was wearing a leather jacket,” he said, “and that’s no help, either. He was about my height, not young, but not old, either. Not fat, not thin. Nothing terribly memorable about him.”

“You could be describing yourself, Keller.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

“No, you’d remember if it was. What’s his angle? I’ll tell you, he doesn’t sound like the Caped Crusader to me, not the way he stands aside and lets you fulfill the contract before he makes his move. If all this was in aid of truth and justice and the American Way, wouldn’t he go for an ounce of prevention?”

“You’d think so.”

“So why does he wait? In Boston he may not have had much choice. He probably couldn’t ID you until you were on your way out of the place. But in Louisville he had all the time in the world. What was he waiting for?”

“Maybe he was being considerate.”

“Of whom, for Christ’s sake? Not of Hirschhorn, that’s for sure. Considerate of you? Like he wants to let you have your moment of triumph before he takes you off the board? Somehow I don’t think so. So who does that leave?” Her eyes widened. “Jesus. He was being considerate of the client.”

“I don’t know who else there is.”

“But why would he care about the client? Wait a minute. I’m actually beginning to get a glimmer here. He doesn’t want to screw things up for the client, so that’s why he lets the hit go down before he makes a move on the hitter. And what does he care about the client?”

“He’s in the business.”

“Which I suppose should have been obvious from the jump. I mean, look at his trademark. Two in the head with a twenty-two? That’s not the gunfight at the OK Corral. That’s a pro signing his work.”

“But what’s he got against me?” He got to his feet. “It can’t be personal. He doesn’t even know who I am. Is he trying to get me to join the union? I didn’t even know there was one, but I’d pay my dues along with everybody else.”

“It might be worth it,” she said, “if only for the group medical coverage. Keller, maybe you’re too self-centered.”

“He wants to kill me because I’m too self-centered?”

“Maybe it’s not about you.”

“You know,” he said, “it couldn’t be about me, could it? Because he starts with the contract and waits for the hitter to show up. So where does that lead us? He’s in the business and he’s trying to kill other guys in the business? Is that possible, Dot? And wouldn’t we have heard something?”

“Remember the New York job?”

“Of course I remember it. We were just talking about it.”

“Remember I called the guy I generally call for work in the city?”

“His phone was disconnected.”

“Right.”

“And later you found out that…”

“Don’t stop there, Keller. Finish the thought.”

“That he was dead. Didn’t he die in bed?”

“So did that nice couple in Louisville, remember?”

“But I thought it was his heart or something.”

“His heart stopped,” she said, “and so did theirs. You die, your heart stops. That’s how it works.”

“You think he was killed?”

“I don’t think we can rule it out. If it went down as natural causes, well, how many of your jobs over the years went in the books that way?”