“Nothing as interesting as raincoats, would be my guess. I could unmute the thing, but I think we’re better off wondering.”
“You’re probably right. I wonder if that was it. Losing the raincoat, I mean.”
“You wonder if it was what?”
“The feeling I had.”
“You did have a feeling about Boston, didn’t you? It wasn’t a stamp auction. You didn’t want to take the job.”
“I took it, didn’t I?”
“But you didn’t want to. Tell me more about this feeling, Keller.”
“It was just a feeling,” he said. He wasn’t ready to tell her about his horoscope. He could imagine how she’d react, and he didn’t want to hear it.
“You had a feeling another time,” she said. “In Louisville.”
“That was a little different.”
“And both times the jobs went fine.”
“That’s true.”
“So where do you suppose these feelings are coming from? Any idea?”
“Not really. It wasn’t that strong a feeling this time, anyway. And I took the job, and I did it.”
“And it went smooth as silk.”
“More or less,” he said.
“More or less?”
“I used a letter opener.”
“What for? Sorry, dumb question. What did you do, pick it up off his desk?”
“Bought it on the way there.”
“In Boston?”
“Well, I didn’t want to take it through the metal detector. I bought it in Boston, and I took it with me when I left.”
“Naturally. And chucked it in a Dumpster or down a sewer. Except you didn’t or you wouldn’t have brought up the subject. Oh, for Christ’s sake, Keller. The coat pocket?”
“Along with the keys.”
“What keys? Oh, hell, the keys to the apartment. A set of keys and a murder weapon and you’re carrying them around in your coat pocket.”
“They were going down a storm drain before I went to the airport,” he said, “but first I wanted to get something to eat, and the next thing I knew my coat was gone.”
“And the thief got more than just a coat.”
“And an umbrella.”
“Forget the umbrella, will you? Besides the coat he got keys and a letter opener. There’s no little tag on the keys, tells the address, or is there?”
“Just two keys on a plain wire ring.”
“And I hope you didn’t let them engrave your initials on the letter opener.”
“No, and I wiped it clean,” he said. “But still.”
“Nothing to lead to you.”
“No.”
“But still,” she said.
“That’s what I said. ‘But still.’ ”
Back in the city, Keller picked up the Boston papers. Both covered the murder in detail. Alvin Thurnauer, it turned out, was a prominent local businessman with connections to local political interests and, the papers hinted, to less savory elements as well. That he’d died violently in a Back Bay love nest, along with a blonde to whom he was not married, did nothing to diminish the news value of his death.
Both papers assured him that the police were pursuing various leads. Keller, reading between the lines, concluded that they didn’t have a clue. They might guess that someone had contracted to have Thurnauer hit, and they might be able to guess who that someone was, but they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere with it. There were no witnesses, no useful physical evidence.
He almost missed the second murder.
The Globe didn’t have it. But there it was in the Herald, a small story on a back page, a man found dead on Boston Common, shot twice in the head with a small-caliber weapon.
Keller could picture the poor bastard, lying facedown on the grass, the rain washing relentlessly down on him. He could picture the dead man’s coat, too. The Herald didn’t say anything about a coat, but that didn’t matter. Keller could picture it all the same.
Green as the grass.
He stared hard at his thumb, then looked in a drawer for the copy of his chart Louise had given him. It looked even more impressive now, if no less incomprehensible. He put it back in the drawer.
Later, when the sky was dark, he went outside and looked up at the stars.
Keller’s Designated Hitter
Keller, a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other, walked up a flight and a half of concrete steps and found his way to his seat. In front of him, two men were discussing the ramifications of a recent trade the Tarpons had made, sending two minor-league prospects to the Florida Marlins in return for a left-handed reliever and a player to be named later. Keller figured he hadn’t missed anything, as they’d been talking about the same subject when he left. He figured the player in question would have been long since named by the time these two were done speculating about him.
Keller took a bite of his hot dog, drew a sip of his beer. The fellow on his left said, “You didn’t bring me one.”
Huh? He’d told the guy he’d be back in a minute, might have mentioned he was going to the refreshment stand, but had he missed something the man had said in return?
“What didn’t I bring you? A hot dog or a beer?”
“Either one,” the man said.
“Was I supposed to?”
“Nope,” the man said. “Hey, don’t mind me. I’m just jerking your chain a little.”
“Oh,” Keller said.
The fellow started to say something else, but broke it off after a word or two as he and everybody else in the stadium turned their attention to home plate, where the Tarpons’ cleanup hitter had just dropped to the dirt to avoid getting hit by a high inside fastball. The Yankee pitcher, a burly Japanese with a herky-jerky windup, seemed unfazed by the boos, and Keller wondered if he even knew they were for him. He caught the return throw from the catcher, set himself, and went into his pitching motion.
“Taguchi likes to pitch inside,” said the man who’d been jerking Keller’s chain, “and Vollmer likes to crowd the plate. So every once in a while Vollmer has to hit the dirt or take one for the team.”
Keller took another bite of his hot dog, wondering if he ought to offer a bite to his new friend. That he even considered it seemed to indicate that his chain had been jerked successfully. He was glad he didn’t have to share the hot dog, because he wanted every bite of it for himself. And, when it was gone, he had a feeling he might go back for another.
Which was strange, because he never ate hot dogs. A few years back he’d read a political essay on the back page of a news magazine that likened legislation to sausage. You were better off not knowing how it was made, the writer observed, and Keller, who had heretofore never cared how laws were passed or sausages produced, found himself more conscious of the whole business. The legislative aspect didn’t change his life, but, without making any conscious decision on the matter, he found he’d lost his taste for sausage.
Being at a ballpark somehow made it different. He had a hunch the hot dogs they sold here at Tarpon Stadium were if anything more dubious in their composition than your average supermarket frankfurter, but that seemed to be beside the point. A ballpark hot dog was just part of the baseball experience, along with listening to some flannel-mouthed fan shouting instructions to a ballplayer dozens of yards away who couldn’t possibly hear him, or booing a pitcher who couldn’t care less, or having one’s chain jerked by a total stranger. All part of the Great American Pastime.
He took a bite, chewed, sipped his beer. Taguchi went to three and two on Vollmer, who fouled off four pitches before he got one he liked. He drove it to the 396-foot mark in left center field, where Bernie Williams hauled it in. There had been runners on first and second, and they trotted back to their respective bases when the ball was caught.