“For as long as it takes,” he said. “I’ve got the jar, so I’ll be fine.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s not important. Dot, am I supposed to do anything about the kid?”
“The kid? What kid? Oh, you mean the grocery boy?”
“Right. I mean, he’s a big kid, he’s got to be eighteen or nineteen.”
“He could be a college graduate,” she said. “An English major, working away at the only job he could get.”
“That’d make him what, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
“More, if he went to grad school.”
“I don’t think—”
“Pablo, what difference does it make?”
“Just that it’s not Buffalo all over again.”
“He’s not a little kid with a stamp collection.”
“No.”
“In other words, he’s old enough to stop getting older.”
“From an ethical standpoint,” he said, “I don’t see it as a problem. But is this what the client wants?”
“Pablo, do you figure the Hand Job Kid is her steady squeeze?”
“Well—”
“So to speak. You did say he looked surprised, didn’t you?”
“Astonished. She was driving away and he was standing there with his mouth hanging open, like he couldn’t believe what just happened to him.”
“I’d say he gets to live another day, Pablo.”
“That’s what I thought, but—”
“But the possibility had to be raised. I agree with you there. But this was just her way of saying thank you. ‘Here’s two bucks and a hand job, young man, because I’m not the type to blow you off with a mere dollar.’”
“So to speak,” he said.
“Fair enough. She’s a piece of work, our Mrs. Overmont. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.”
“Oh,” he said.
“You say something, Pablo?”
“The garage door’s going up,” he reported.
“In a minute she’ll be on her way.”
“I don’t see her. Oh, there she is, at the front door. She’s standing on the stoop.”
“Clutching a small bottle of hand lotion.”
“No,” he said.
“On her way to the car.”
“I don’t think so, because she’s not carrying her purse. Would she go out without it? Oh.”
“Oh?”
“A white car turning into the driveway,” he said. “Except it’s more of a van. There’s a man driving, has a sort of Marlboro Man look to him.”
“That’s going back a ways, the Marlboro Man. Didn’t they all die of lung cancer?”
“She’s waving. I think she’s glad to see him.”
“You don’t figure that’s a gun in her pocket?”
“And now she’s back inside the house. She just closed the door.”
“You know, this is wonderful, Pablo. Getting a play-by-play like this, it’s almost like I’m watching it with my own two eyes. Why’d you stop?”
“Because nothing’s happening,” he said. “Oh, there you go.”
“What?”
“The garage door’s closing. I guess she walked over and pressed the button. The garage is attached, he can go in straight from there, the way she did with the groceries.”
“So it’s closed and his van’s in there.”
“Right.”
“He could be the gardener,” she said, “or the electrician, or the guy who takes care of the pool. The pool guy, I guess you call him.”
“Is there a pool?”
“How would I know? You’re the one who’s sitting there. If you can’t see whether or not there’s a pool in the backyard—”
“If there is, I couldn’t see it from here. The house is in the way.”
“My guess,” she said, “is it’s probably not the pool guy. Or the cable guy, or the guy to fix the furnace or change the filters on the air-conditioners. What do you figure, central air or window units?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind, because if it was any of those guys his car would be parked in plain sight in the driveway, not stashed away in the garage next to her Mercedes.”
“Lexus.”
“Whatever. I think you’re done with the detecting part, Pablo. Now it’s time to switch hats.”
“What did you just say?”
“That you can quit being Sherlock Holmes and do what you were born to do.”
“You said something about hats.”
“It’s an expression, for God’s sake. Switching hats, meaning playing a different role.”
He took the fedora from his head, looked at it, put it back on again. “Never mind,” he said. “I was confused for a minute there.” Something occurred to him. “Dot, do I need to get into the house and take pictures?”
“What, of the two of them in a compromising position?”
“Well, do I?”
There was a pause, and he wondered if perhaps the Pablo phone had gone dead. Then she said, “Maybe I didn’t make this clear. He’s not looking to divorce the woman.”
“I know that, but—”
“In fact he’s very clear that he doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
“I got that, but—”
“All the man wants,” she said, “is for the other man in her life to stop being in her life. Or in anybody’s life, including his own.”
“I just thought he might want proof,” he said, “that we didn’t, you know, just pick somebody at random.”
She thought it over. She said, “Okay, our client doesn’t know who the guy is, so how does he know we’ve picked the right man. Is that what you mean?”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“So it would appear. And you have a point.”
There was a pause, but this time he knew the line was intact. He could tell she was thinking.
She said, “Okay, he’s gonna have to take our word for it. The thing is, you have to be positive. Because if the Marlboro Man turns out to be her brother Charlie, or some butch queen who dropped in to give her some advice on where to put the sofa—”
“That wouldn’t be good.”
“So check him out,” she said. “You don’t need evidence to show the client, just so long as you’re convinced. After that, you know what you have to do.”
“Right.”
“And you’re okay? Because it might be a while before he’s done in there.”
His hand reached for the empty iced tea jar. “No problem,” he said. “I’m set.”
Keller happened to be looking at the garage door when it began its ascent. By then it was getting on for five in the afternoon, and he’d found himself thinking about the empty jar. It was a comfort to have it there, but the actual business of peeing in it was something he thought he’d put off as long as he could. He already felt conspicuous, sitting in a parked car on a street where few cars were parked. It helped that there was very little traffic, and no pedestrian traffic except for two boys, one of them dribbling a basketball, the other making a half-hearted attempt to get it away from him. They dribbled off down the street and turned at the corner, and neither of them gave Keller any notice.
Still, there he was, with his license plate visible to any citizen who cared to make a note of it. Part of the time he wore the hat and part of the time he didn’t, but what difference did that make? It was off his head and on the seat beside him when the Overmont garage door went up, and that got his full attention. He waited for a glimpse of either or both of them, wishing they’d walk out arm in arm, pausing for a warm embrace and a quick grope before the guy got behind the wheel.
But if that happened he never saw it, because all he could see from where he sat was the rear end of the white van, and it was too deep in the shadows for him to make out a license plate. Then the engine started up and the van backed out of the garage.
By the time Keller got his engine started, the van had pulled out into the street, then turned and headed off in a direction opposite to the one Keller was facing. He had to turn around, and his quarry was already vanishing from sight, taking a left two blocks away.