“I know.”
“You called me, said you had something.”
“I do, but I had no business calling you.”
“It’s not the kind of work I do? What is it, addressing envelopes at home? Telemarketing?”
“Now there’s something you’d be great at,” she said. “’Hello, Mrs. Clutterpan? How are you today?’”
“They always say that, don’t they? ‘How are you today?’ Right away you know it’s somebody trying to sell you something you don’t want.”
“I guess they figure it’s an icebreaker,” she said. “They ask you a question and you answer it, they’re halfway home.”
“It doesn’t work with me.”
“Or me either, but would you ever buy anything from some mope who called you on the phone?”
“The last time I got a phone call,” he said, “I hopped on a train to White Plains, and now I’m supposed to turn around and go home.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Can we back up and start over? A job came in, and it’s what you do, and there’s no problem with the fee.”
“And I’ll bet the next sentence starts with but.”
“But it’s here in New York.”
“Oh.”
“It happens, Keller. People in New York are like people everywhere else, and sometimes they want somebody taken out. It’s hard to believe there are New Yorkers with the same callous disregard for the sanctity of human life that you get in Roseburg, Oregon, and Martingale, Wyoming. But there it is, Keller. What can I tell you?”
“I don’t know. What can you tell me?”
“Obviously,” she said, “this has happened before. When a New York job comes in, I don’t call you. I call somebody else and he comes in from somewhere else and does it.”
“But this time you called me.”
“There are two people I’d ordinarily call. One of them does what I do, he makes arrangements, and when I’ve got something I can’t handle I call him and sub it out to him. But I couldn’t call him this time, because he was the one who called me.”
“And who did that leave?”
“A fellow out on the West Coast, who does the same sort of work you do. I wouldn’t say he’s got your flair, Keller, but he’s solid and professional. I’ve used him before in New York, and once or twice when you were busy on another assignment. He’s my backup man, you might say.”
“So you called him.”
“I tried.”
“He wasn’t home?”
“Phone’s been disconnected.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s not going to hear me unless I shout at the top of my lungs. I don’t know what else it means, Keller. Plain and simple, his phone’s been disconnected. Did he change his number for security reasons? Did he move? You’d think he’d give me his new number, but I don’t send him much work and I’m probably not one of the low numbers on his Speed Dial. In fact…”
“What?”
“Well, I’m not even positive he has this number. He must have had it once, but if he lost it he wouldn’t know how to reach me.”
“Either way-“
“Either way he hasn’t called and I can’t call him, and here’s this job, and I thought of you. Except it’s in New York, and you know what they say about crapping where you eat.”
“They don’t recommend it.”
“They don’t,” she said, “and I have to say I agree with the conventional wisdom this time around. The whole idea is you go in where you don’t know anybody and nobody knows you, and when you’re done you go home. You’re out of there before the body is cold.”
“Not always. Sometimes you can’t get a flight out right away.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure.”
“I’m a big believer in keeping things separate.”
“Like crapping and eating.”
“Like crapping and eating. New York ’s for you to live in. That leaves the whole rest of the world to work in, and isn’t that enough?”
“Of course three-quarters of the earth’s surface is water,” he said.
“Keller…”
“And how much work do you get up around the North Pole, or down in Antarctica? But you’re right, there’s a lot left.”
“I’ll call the man back and tell him we pass.”
“Hang on a minute.”
“What for?”
“I came all this way,” he said. “I might as well hear about it. Just tell me it’s a connected guy, has a couple of no-neck bodyguards with him night and day, and I can go home.”
“He’s an artist.”
“At what, mayhem? Extortion?”
“At art,” she said. “He paints pictures.”
“No kidding.”
“He’s got a show coming up. In Chelsea.”
“I heard there were galleries opening over there. Way west, by the river. Is that where he lives?”
“Uh-uh. Williamsburg.”
“That’s in Brooklyn.”
“So?”
“Practically another city.”
“What are you doing, Keller? Talking yourself into something?”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “The thing is, Dot, it’s been a while.”
“Tell me about it.”
“And the last one, that business in Louisville…”
“Not a walk in the park, as I recall.”
“It actually went pretty smoothly,” he said, “when you look back on it, but it didn’t seem so smooth while it was going on. We got paid and everybody was happy, but even so it left a bad taste.”
“So you’d like to rinse your mouth out?”
“Is there a lot of fine print in the contract, Dot? Does it have to look like a heart attack or an accident?”
She shook her head. “Homicide’s fine, and as noisy as you want it.”
“Oh?”
“So I’m told. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, unless it’s an object lesson for a player to be named later, but if you can arrange for the guy to get decapitated at high noon in Macy’s window, nobody would be the least bit upset.”
“Except for the artist.”
“Keller,” she said, “you can’t please everybody. What do you think? You want to do this?”
“I could use the money.”
“Well, who couldn’t? The first payment’s on its way, because I said yes first and then looked for someone to do it. I don’t have to tell you how I hate to send money back once I have it in hand.”
“Not your favorite thing.”
“I get attached to it,” she said, “and I think of it as my money, so returning it feels like spending it, and without getting anything for it. Do you want a day or two to think about this?”
He shook his head. “I’m in.”
“Really? Brooklyn or no, it’s still New York. He’s in Williamsburg, you’re on First Avenue, you can just about see his house from your window.”
“Not really.”
“All the same…”
“It won’t be the first time in New York, Dot. Never on a job, but personal business, and what’s the difference?” He straightened up in his chair. “I’m in,” he said. “Now tell me about the guy.”
“I used to paint,” Maggie Griscomb said. “Now I make jewelry.”
“I was noticing your earrings.”
“These? They’re my work. I only wear my own pieces, because that way I get to be a walking showcase. Unless I’m sitting down, in which case I’m a sitting showcase.”
They were sitting now, in a booth at a Cuban coffee shop on Eighth Avenue, drinking cafй con leche.
“It’s odd,” she said, “because I like jewelry, and not just my own. I buy other people’s jewelry and it just sits in the drawer.”
“How come you stopped painting?”
“I stopped being twenty-nine.”
“I didn’t know there was an age limit.”
“I spent my twenties painting moody abstract oils and sleeping with strangers,” she said. “I figure my twenties lasted until my thirty-fourth birthday, when I got out of some guy’s bed, threw up in his bathroom, and tried to get out of there without looking at him or the mirror. It struck me that I was older than Jesus Christ, and it was time to quit being twenty-nine and grow up. I looked at all my paintings and I thought, Jesus, what crap. Nobody ever bought any of them. Nobody even went so far as to admire them, unless it was some guy desperate to get laid. A horny man will pretend an enthusiasm for just about anything. But aside from that, about the best most people would do was say my work was interesting. Listen, I’ve got a tip for you. Don’t ever tell an artist his work is interesting.”