Hit Man

meal. Keller had another bottle afterward. Engleman had a cup of coffee.
    “If I had a house with a fenced yard,” Keller said, “I could have a dog and not worry about him running off.”
    “I guess you could,” Engleman said.
    “I had a dog when I was a kid,” Keller said. “Just the once. I had him for about two years when I was eleven, twelve years old. His name was Soldier.”
    “I was wondering about that.”
    “He wasn’t part shepherd. He was a little thing. I suppose he must have been some kind of terrier cross.”
    “Did he run off?”
    “No, he got hit by a car. He was stupid about cars, he just ran out into the street. The driver couldn’t help it.”
    “How did you happen to call him Soldier?”
    “I forget. Then, when I did the flyer, I don’t know, I had to put ‘Answers to something.’ All I could think of were names like Fido and Rover and Spot. Be like signing John Smith on a hotel register, you know? Then it came to me. Soldier. Been years since I thought about that dog.”
    After lunch Engleman went back to the shop and Keller returned to the motel for his car. He drove out of town on the same road he’d taken the day he bought the gun. This time he drove a few miles farther before pulling over and cutting the engine.
    He got the gun from the glove box and opened the cylinder, spilling the shells into his palm. He tossed them underhand, then weighed the gun in his hand for a moment before hurling it into a patch of brush.
    McLarendon would be horrified, he thought. Mistreating a weapon in that fashion. Showed what an astute judge of character the man was.
    He got back into his car and drove back to town.
    He called White Plains. When the woman answered, he said, “You don’t have to disturb him, Dot. Just tell him I didn’t make my flight today. I changed the reservation, I moved it ahead to Tuesday. Tell him everything’s okay, only it’s taking a little longer, like I thought it might.” She asked how the weather was. “It’s real nice,” he said. “Very pleasant. Listen, don’t you think that’s part of it? If it was raining I’d probably have it all taken care of, I’d be home by now.”
    Quik Print was closed Saturdays and Sundays. Saturday afternoon Keller called Engleman at home and asked him if he felt like going for a ride. “I’ll pick you up,” he offered.
    When he got there Engleman was waiting out in front. He got in and fastened his seat belt. “Nice car,” he said.
    “It’s a rental.”
    “I didn’t figure you drove your own car all the way out here. You know, it gave me a turn. When you said, ‘How about going for a ride?’ You know, going for a ride. Like there’s a connotation.”
    “Actually,” Keller said, “we probably should have taken your car. I figured you could show me the area.”
    “You like it here, huh?”
    “Very much,” Keller said. “I’ve been thinking. Suppose I just stayed here.”
    “Wouldn’t he send somebody?”
    “You think he would? I don’t know. He wasn’t knocking himself out trying to find you. At first, sure, but then he forgot about it. Then some eager beaver in San Francisco happens to spot you, and sure, he tells me to go out and handle it. But if I just don’t come back—”
    “Caught up in the lure of Roseburg,” Engleman said.
    “I don’t know, Burt, it’s not a bad place. You know, I’m going to stop that.”
    “What?”
    “Calling you Burt. Your name’s Ed now, so why don’t I call you Ed? What do you think, Ed? That sound good to you, Ed, old buddy?”
    “And what do I call you?”
    “Al’s fine,” Keller said. “What should I do, take a left here?”
    “No, go another block or two,” Engleman said. “There’s a nice back road, leads through some very pretty scenery.”
    A while later Keller said, “You miss it much, Ed?”
    “Working for him, you mean?”
    “No, not that. The city.”
    “New York? I never lived in the city, not really. We were up in Westchester.”
    “Still, the whole area. You miss it?”
    “No.”
    “I wonder if I would.” They fell silent, and after perhaps five minutes Keller said, “My father was a soldier, he was killed in the war when I was just a baby. That’s why I named the dog Soldier.”
    Engleman didn’t say anything.
    “Except I think my mother was lying,” he went on. “I don’t think she was married, and I have a feeling she didn’t know who my father was. But I didn’t know that when I named the dog. When you