There were almost too many options.
And way too much time to weigh them. Keller picked up the hammer and hunkered down on the left, right behind where the driver would sit. This wasn’t the first time he’d waited in an unoccupied vehicle, and on one previous occasion he’d had an improvised garrote. Which, now that he thought about it, was really the only kind there was, because you couldn’t go into a store and buy a ready-made garrote.
Though he supposed that could change overnight. All you needed was a powerful lobby, a group calling itself the National Garrote Association, say, and funded by an international cartel of garrote manufacturers, fully prepared to throw a lot of money at legislators while citing the relevant constitutional amendment. Probably not the one guaranteeing freedom of speech, because speech was difficult with a wire around your throat, and anyway nobody had the right to cry “Garrote!” in a crowded vehicle, and—
He never expected to drift off, not in such an uncomfortable position, but his thoughts drifted and his mind ambled along after them, and if he wasn’t technically asleep, he was anything but bright-eyed and alert.
Until the argument woke him.
His immediate reaction to the three voices, three vaguely familiar voices at that, was an attempt to incorporate them into his dream. Then one of them said, “He can’t drive, the sonofabitch is shitfaced,” and another said, “Who you callin’ a sonofabitch, you sonofabitch?” and he came fully awake while Cowboy Hat and Marlboro Man argued over who would give Tom Cruise a ride home.
It was like a custody battle over an unwanted child. “You take him!” “Hell no, you take him!” The child, meanwhile, insisted he’d be just fine on his own, and Keller got the feeling they’d had this argument before. It ended with Tom Cruise’s stunt double, insisting on his statutory right to drive drunk or sober, getting into his van and pulling out. Keller braced himself, expecting to hear brakes squeal or worse, but heard neither.
That left two of them, Cowboy Hat and Marlboro Man, and if they weren’t as drunk as their friend, neither were they sober. And so they stood between the two remaining vans having the sort of conversation one might expect them to have, and Keller’s heart sank when Cowboy Hat said, “You know what? He’s the one who was drunk, am I right or am I right?”
“One or the other,” Marlboro Man agreed.
“And he went home, so how about you and I kick back one more beer before we go?”
“What, back in there? Back in the Wet Spot?”
“Why not?”
“Too many tattoos.”
“What, the gal behind the bar? Ol’ Maggie?”
“Way too many tattoos.”
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t do her if you had the chance.”
“Did her once.”
“Bullshit.”
“She was drunk, I was drunk, all I remember is we did it. Woke up to a room full of tattoos. Whole lot you don’t get to see when she’s got her clothes on.”
“You don’t want to go back for one more beer? On account of tattoos?”
God, this was endless. Was there a way to get out of the car and take them both out? There wasn’t, of course, not without a gun on full auto, and all he had was a hammer.
“Got it,” Cowboy Hat said. “The Spotted Tiger.”
“On Quincy? Love that place.”
“So I’ll meet you there. Or you want to ride with me?” Keller held his breath. “No, we should take both vans, in case you want to go home before I do.”
Keller released his breath.
“Me? You’ll be the one wants to leave first.”
“Me? Hell, man, you’re the pussy.”
“Always bringin’ up pussy, man. You want to smell my finger?”
And a little more banter, and Keller thought he was going to lose his mind, and then two van doors were sliding open, the one he was in and the one on the right, and Keller’s grip tightened on the hammer, because right now was the tricky part. If Marlboro Man happened to look in back while he was getting behind the wheel—
But he didn’t. He settled himself in the driver’s seat, slid the door shut, got his key in the ignition on the first try. On the right, Cowboy Hat was doing the same, and his engine started first. He gunned it, and now Marlboro Man answered in kind, and the two idiots took turns revving their engines, neither of them putting his van in gear, neither of them going anywhere.
Fifty-fifty, Keller thought. If Cowboy Hat drove away first, he’d swing the hammer and end it. If Marlboro Man led the way, he’d have to wait it out, see what opportunity presented itself along the way or at the Spotted Tiger.
Oh, the hell with it.
“You just went ahead,” Dot said. “Pablo, I don’t know how you found the nerve.”
“I was trying to think it through,” he said, “and it seemed to me that what I was doing was overthinking it.”
“Oh? Whatever gave you that idea?”
He was in his room at the Super 8. The first thing he’d done, after using the room phone to call Amtrak’s 800 number, was get out of his clothes and under the shower. He was wearing fresh clothes now, and seated in the unit’s comfortable chair. And on the Pablo phone, talking to Dot.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said. “Sooner or later he’d have to sense my presence and turn around, you know? So I hauled off and swatted him on the temple.”
“And the cowboy just drove off into the sunset?”
“Sunset was a couple of hours ago,” he said. “But that’s pretty much what happened. First thing he did was gun his engine, and then when my guy didn’t respond—”
“Which he couldn’t, with his skull caved in.”
“—he went and gunned it again, and then I guess he figured the game was over.”
“I’ll say.”
“I was waiting for him to come see what was wrong. He was on the right, so all he had to do was look in through the window on the passenger side, or the windshield in front. And he’d see the guy and figure he passed out or had a stroke or something, and he’d come around the van and try to help him, and I’d have a shot at him.”
“With your hammer. What’s the saying?”
“What saying?”
“‘When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’ But you didn’t have to nail him, did you?”
“No,” he said. “He never got out of his van. He gunned the engine one last time and then backed up and drove away.”
“And your Marlboro Man was dead as a doornail.”
Well, was he? He was certainly out cold, but Keller hadn’t bothered to take his pulse. Simpler to swing the hammer a second time, with a blow that left nothing to chance.
“The job’s done,” he assured her.
He waited while she switched phones and called the client. “I didn’t tell him much,” she reported. “Just that his problem’s been solved, and where to send the money. I didn’t have a name to give him, because you never told me.”
“I never knew it myself.”
“You found him,” she said, “without knowing who you found. Well, that’s a first. I’ll tell you, the client couldn’t believe it happened so fast, and do you want to know something, Pablo? I’m pretty impressed myself.”
“You are?”
“I figured a week minimum and probably more like two. Detective work, you know? Sneaking around, lurking in the shadows, snooping around for clues. That’s a good week right there, and then you still need to find an opportunity to close the deal. What time did you get to Chicago? Eight in the morning?”