Keller at Sea

A HIT MAN'S JOB BECOMES

MORE COMPLICATED WHEN HE

AND HIS TARGET ARE SAILING___

TOGETHER ON A CRUISE S BUT, THEN, THIS IS A SPECIAL KIND OF HIT MAN

eller and Julia were in the Club Lounge for the bon voyage cocktail party when the Carefree Nights set sail for the Bahamas. Members of the staff passed trays of drinks, and Keller picked off a pair of margaritas. He barely touched his and offered it to Julia when she'd finished her own, but one was all she wanted.

She fell into conversation with an older woman from Mobile, and the two of them got caught up in a spirited game of Who Do You Know? That left Keller and the woman's hus­band to talk about sports or the stock market, say, but the fellow wasn't much of a talker. That was fine with Keller, who was too busy scanning the room to pay much attention to anything else.

He didn't see Michael Anthony Carmody, whose photo was now in Keller's back pocket. Nor did he see any men in suits or indeed anyone built like a football player. Aside from the ship's staff, most of the people in the room looked as though they'd had their AARP cards long enough to forget where they'd put them. Carmody wouldn't stand out in their company, but his entourage would.

After the lifeboat drill, Keller found his way to where they posted cabin assignments. There was no Carmody listed, and Keller wasn't surprised. Didn't the people trying to keep Carmody alive have more than enough clout for that?

He went all the way through the list, and all four sundeck cabins were occupied. None of the names meant anything to him.

At dinner, they shared a table with three other couples. The conversation was mostly of past cruises, and that left him and Julia with­out much to contribute. It also made their company useful to the others, who were able to tell them which ships they should avoid, which ones they were sure to love and no end of other tips that demanded little more from Keller than a thoughtful nod.

Keller didn't see Carmody anywhere, or anybody who looked young enough to be his daughter or to move Gallagher to cup his hands and say whatever it was he'd said. Va-va-voom?

Of course Carmody, like any Carefree Nights passenger, had the option of dining in his stateroom. And if his companion was indeed of the va-va-voom sort, and if this was a maid-

en voyage for the two of them, it stood to rea­son that the man might be reluctant to leave his cabin, at least for the first day or two.

"Oh my," Julia murmured.

Keller saw where she was looking and noted that half the people in the dining room were looking in the same direction. Va-va-vooml

"I didn't know it would be like this," Julia said.

"What? The ship? Our cabin?"

They were back in their cabin now and free at last to talk about the strawberry blonde knockout who'd stopped all dining room con­versation in its tracks.

She shook her head. "Seeing him ahead of time. That was him, wasn't it? The man playing Mr. December to her Miss May? Except that sweet young thing's barely made it into April. Is statutory rape legal in international waters?"

"I don't think anybody's going to arrest him."

"Still, he's got to be your assignment. Did you get a look at the two hoods keeping the couple company? A table for four, and they all came in together and left together. I'm sure those two were carrying guns."

"The two younger men, you mean."

She gave him a look. "Just tell me I'm not spinning an elaborate story out of thin air. It's him, isn't it?"

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"No, and I wasn't going to try to coax it out of you, because I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Although it might be worse, having to be careful not to get too friendly with any of the women because one of their husbands might be the very man my husband was here to—do I want a euphemism? To nullify, to take off the board, what?"

"There's just the two of us here," he pointed out.

"You're right. To kill. Although I'm not sure you're going to have to kill anybody. She'll do it for you."

"Because she's young?"

"Darling, did you look at her? And don't tell me you didn't, because every man on the ship did, even the gay waiter. The woman oozes sex. It drips from her. Didn't you notice?"

Keller woke up when the ship cut its en­gines. It was 6:30, and he figured that was Nassau he could see through the window. Or were you supposed to call it a porthole?

Julia was sleeping. He showered and dressed and went to the dining room, where they were serving a buffet breakfast, with a happy chef on hand to make you whatever sort of omelet you wanted.

Keller sat by himself at a table for two, nodded at the waiter's offer of orange juice, nodded a second time for coffee. He picked out items from the buffet and was agreeing to a second cup of coffee when Carmody's pair of bodyguards showed up. At dinner their suits had given way to blue blazers and Dockers, and this morning they'd come all the way down to floral-patterned short-sleeve shirts. Something in their stance suggested they didn't feel entirely happy with their at­tire, but Keller wondered if maybe he was imagining that part.

He'd been giving the two some thought. Last night, he'd wondered what he was go-

ing to do about them; this morning, in the shower, he'd had them on his mind. They'd make it more difficult to get to Carmody or even to do reconnaissance toward that end. But Carmody had already shown he wasn't going to spend every minute in his stateroom, so Keller figured the opportunity would arise before the ship was back in Port Everglades.

He could probably arrange some sort of accident. But with these two around, would it pass as an accident? If they couldn't keep their charge safe, the least they could do was straighten things out after the fact.

Keller got to his feet, set his napkin beside his plate. "I'll be back," he told a passing waiter. "Don't clear the table."

Julia opened her eyes when he let himself into their stateroom. "Forgot something," he said. "Go back to sleep." He rummaged in his bag, found what he was looking for and hur­ried back to the dining room.

His table was as he'd left it, and the waiter had refilled his coffee cup. More important, Carmody's minders were still at their table. They were in fact built like football players,

though a little small for the pros. College, Keller decided, and not the NCAA

top tier but one level below it. ^ Appalachian State, University of Delaware—something like that. What Keller hoped was that

they'd have football-player appetites. They were both at the table now, with plates of food. Keller's best chance would have been right after they ordered coffee and headed for the buffet, but he'd needed to get to the cabin first.

Packing for the cruise, Keller had made do with a small bag but had managed to find room for more than his clothes. He knew he wouldn't have access to drugstores or hard­ware stores or ghetto entrepreneurs, so he'd brought along what he thought he might need. His toilet kit included special pills and

powders beside the usual aspirin, and an im­provised garrote was wound into a coil and tucked into the toe of a spare shoe.

And he'd packed the HandyMan traveler's tool kit that had belonged to Julia's father. There was a little chrome-plated hammer, handy if he needed to check somebody's pa-tellar reflex, and needle-nose pliers and a belt punch. But there was also a knife blade long enough to be useful.

He sipped his coffee and set about watching the two men without being obvious about it. A waiter approached, filled their cups. The run­ning back took a sip, put his cup down and got to his feet. He picked up his plate, and evidently the tight end reminded him you were supposed to use a clean plate, because he returned his plate to the table and headed for the buffet. The tight end stayed seated and had a sip of coffee.

Come on, Keller urged him silently. The bacon's crisp, the sausages are tangy. Let the guy ¦make you an omelet.

For a moment Keller thought his message had gotten through, (continued on page 162)

KELLER

(continued from page 116) because the man's hands fastened on the arms of his chair as if to brace himself for the hard work of standing up. But the son of a bitch stayed where he was, and all he did with his hands was reach for his coffee.

The running back returned with a plate piled high with enough food for both of them, and evidently the tight end thought it looked pretty good, because he was moving his hands again to the arms of his chair. This time he got to his feet, plate in hand, and it was the running back's turn to remind him about the fresh-plate requirement, and the tight end gave a laugh and put his plate back on the table.

Well, maybe they weren't terribly bright. Keller found that a hopeful sign.

Keller took the little vial of pills from his pocket, uncapped the lid, shook two white tablets into his palm. Anyone watch­ing would have seen him pop them into his mouth and chase them with water, but in fact the pills remained in his hand.

The ship had drawn up at the dock, and at nine its passengers would be able to disembark and spend the morning in Nassau. Keller's plan would work bet­ter, he knew, if they were in open waters with a lively sea under them. That would add verisimilitude, but at the same time it would add a degree of difficulty to his own moves.

Still, this was his chance, and he took it.

He walked toward the table where the running back was plying his fork with en­thusiasm. The deck was firm underfoot, no surprise, given that the Carefree Nights lay at anchor, but Keller managed to tee­ter a bit as he walked, as if he might have equilibrium problems even on dry land.

He made sure not to overdo it, aiming for a diagnosis of unsteady on his pins, but when he reached their table he contrived to lose his balance big-time, lurching into the running back's chair and grabbing the man's shoulder for support.

While the fellow reacted, Keller reached with his left hand and dropped one of the pills in the man's coffee.

"Jesus! You all right, fellow? Here, let me give you a hand."

"Sorry, sorry. I was fine when the ship was rocking and rolling, and now I can't—oops!"

And one more hardy lurch, this time into the now-standing running back, who had to work to keep his own balance. But somehow both men stayed on their feet, even as somehow the second pill found its way into the other coffee cup.

Apologies from Keller, assurances from the running back. And then Keller was on his way back, passing his own table and giving here a lurch and there a lurch until he had made his stumbling way out of the dining room altogether.

They were heading back to the ship when they heard the siren. It was loud and of

a type familiar to Keller from films set in Europe. An ambulance roared past them.

They had lunch on the ship and shared a table with two women, both retired schoolteachers from Crawfordsville, Indi­ana, along with a stockbroker and his wife who had retired to Florida from North or South Dakota, Keller wasn't sure which. The ambulance and its mission gave the six of them something to talk about.

"I don't believe I met either of the two men," one schoolteacher said. "If I've got the names right, one was a Mr. Westin and the other was a Mr. Smith."

"Should have been Smith and Wes­son," the stockbroker said. "Way I heard it, after they took them to the hospital, the attendants packed up their bags and found a small arsenal there. A couple of guns, anyway, and ammuni­tion to fit them."

"My goodness. On a cruise?"

"Oh, men and their guns," the second teacher said. She was taller and bulkier than her companion and built not unlike a tight end herself, or maybe a linebacker. "I understand there are men who feel na­ked without their guns. But here we are having lunch and not knowing what they ate that made them so ill."

"Nothing they ate," the broker said. "It was an allergic reaction to some sort of drug. Analeptic shock, I think they call it."

"Anaphylactic," the first teacher said.

"Guns and drugs," the broker's wife said. "And it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Two men traveling together and shar­ing a cabin."

Her husband asked her what that was supposed to mean. She said it was some­thing to take into account.

In their own cabin, Julia said, "I'm still trying to figure it out. Was she suggesting they're gay? And what would that have to do with them both getting sick at the same time?"

Keller shrugged. "Beats me. AIDS, maybe?"

"I suppose. 'Two men sharing a cabin.' I don't know if you saw the look she got when she said that, but the schoolmarms didn't appreciate the implication. Given that they're two women sharing a cabin."

"And they're annoyed because they're lesbians?"

"Or they're not lesbians, and that's why they're annoyed. At the implication."

"The world's a complicated place," Keller said.

The deck chair gave Keller a good view of the four staterooms, one of which housed Carmody and his strawberry blonde. He set about the business of anointing him­self with suntan lotion. It boasted a high SPF number, and he found himself won­dering if there was any point to the whole process. Wouldn't it be simpler to stay in your cabin?

Earlier, Keller had checked the listings and found that Mr. Aldredge Smith and

Mr. John Westin had occupied a cabin one flight below. That was unfortunate, because if their removal to a hospital had left a sundeck stateroom vacant, Keller might have used it as a base of operations.

Keller hadn't thought to pack a bath­ing suit, but the shipboard shop had been happy to sell him one. The sun felt good, and the ship had set sail shortly after lunch. All he had to do was lie there and relax and keep his eyes open.

The third requirement turned out to be impossible. Your eyes are closed, he real­ized at one point and told himself he'd have to do something about it, but by then it was too late.

He came to abruptly. There was no sudden noise, and no one jostled his chair or walked past it to block the sun. He wondered later if it might have been an unconscious awareness of her pres­ence that did it, because when he opened his eyes there she was, not 10 yards away, Ms. Va-va-voom herself, sitting on a deck chair of her own, applying suntan oil to those portions of her anatomy not cov­ered by the scarlet bikini.

Which was to say almost all of her.

She took her time oiling her golden-brown skin, and it seemed to Keller she was caressing herself. He didn't want to stare at her but seemed incapable of averting his eyes, and the next thing he knew she was looking right at him.

He looked away, but it was as if he could see her no matter where his eyes were turned. He looked her way again, and she was still gazing at him.

Then she swung her legs up onto the chair and lowered the back into a horizontal position. Keller watched as she put her hands behind her back, un­coupled the bikini top and removed it altogether.

She couldn't have exposed her breasts to him for more than a couple of sec­onds, but they were longer seconds than most. Then she was lying facedown on the chair.

Had anyone else seen what Keller had seen? He saw no one who gave any evidence of having witnessed the performance. Had it been for his ben­efit? Or had he merely chanced to be present when a free-spirited creature displayed her charms without thinking twice about it?

Her head was turned to one side, resting on her arm and facing toward Keller. Her eyes were closed. And she was smiling.

Go back to his cabin? Go to the bar for a drink or the lounge for a cup of coffee? Find his way to the library and pick out something to read?

Keller closed his eyes to give the matter some thought, and once again the combination of sun and waves car­ried him off. He didn't doze for long, but when he opened his eyes he saw that the girl had changed position. She was lying

on her back now and was once again wear­ing the bikini top.

And she was no longer alone. On the lounge chair just beyond hers, wearing Bermuda shorts and a loose-fitting shirt, sat Carmody himself.

The contrast between the two of them was far greater beneath the sun. Earlier he'd looked old enough to be her father or perhaps her father's older brother; now you'd be more apt to cast him as her dead grandfather.

She was lying down. Carmody's chair was in what the airlines call the full upright position, and he sat there looking like a man waiting for his number to be called. Then, after a few moments, he rested a hand on his companion's shoulder. Keller thought that was a tender gesture until the hand moved lower and slipped inside a cup of the bikini halter.

Keller looked away, willing the old goat to keep his hands to himself, and when he looked their way again it was as if his wish had been Carmody's command. Both the man's hands were now resting on the arms of his own chair.

Carmody was saying something.

"Carina? You don't want to get too much sun, honey."

"Feels so good," she replied so softly that Keller could barely make out the words.

"I can think of something else that'll feel good. Time to go inside, Carina."

"Give me a few more minutes, Mickey. You go. I'll be there by the time you're out of the shower."

"You and the sun," Carmody said.

"Makes me warm. You like me warm, don't you, Mickey?"

The man answered by leaning over to cop another feel, and Carina contrived to show her appreciation by squirming a little on the chair. Then Carmody slipped

his feet into his flip-flops and stood up.

Keller gave him a head start. He got to his feet, and out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Carina glancing at him. He didn't turn to check but took off in Carmody's wake.

He followed the man over to the four cabins. Carmody led him to one of two on the far side, so if he'd stayed where he was he'd have been able only to halve the pos­sibilities from four to two, but now he was half a dozen steps behind the man by the time he'd used his key card to let himself into 501.

The door closed, and Keller moved in front of it. If he knocked, Carmody would open the door. And once he did, he was there to be taken.

Keller's swimsuit had a pocket, but all it held was his own key card. All he had were his two hands, but if he needed more than that to cope with Michael Carmody he was in the wrong business.

How soon would the girl come back? Could he dispatch Carmody in time to be out of the room before she made her ap­pearance? If not, well, that would be bad luck all around and especially for her. Keller preferred to avoid that sort of situa­tion, but sometimes you couldn't.

He knocked on the door, listened for footsteps.

And didn't hear any. No, of course not, the son of a bitch was taking his shower. He wouldn't be able to hear Keller knocking, or if he did he wouldn't feel the need to cut short his shower to go see who it was.

Knock again? He was about to, but now there was someone in view, a maid pushing a cart. And when she passed there would be somebody else, and sooner or later the girl would show up, and Keller would have to wait for a better time.

Mickey, he thought. Mickey and Carina.

Well, the afternoon hadn't been a total loss. He now knew which cabin they occupied.

At dinner that night, Keller waited until he'd finished his main course, a nice piece of fish that had been swimming not too many hours earlier.

He put his fork down, patted his pock­ets, said, "Hell," and got to his feet. "Some­thing I forgot," he said. "I'm not interested in dessert, so please go ahead without me. I'll join y'all for coffee if I get done in time."

He was breathing hard when he reached the sundeck but caught his breath by the time he was slipping a purloined key card into the door of the Carmody stateroom. The lock turned and he was inside.

The maids serviced cabins during dinner. The sundeck staterooms were essentially two-room suites, and Keller moved around the place looking at things. It put him in position for an ambush, but that would work only if Carmody turned up alone.

But there was at least as good a chance they'd return together, and then what did Keller do? He'd have the advantage of sur­prise, and he was a skilled professional up against two amateurs. He was confident in his ability to take out both of them and could probably do so before either one made enough noise to attract attention.

If he was alone, that was how he'd want to do it. The girl was collateral damage. It was safer to do two for the price of one, and while Carina was a good example of what Mother Nature could do when in­spired, she was unlikely to find a cure for cancer. She'd assumed a certain risk when she agreed to share a cabin with a man like Carmody. Killing her would bother Keller for a while, but he knew how to deal with that sort of thing, and he'd get over it.

That's if he was alone. But he wasn't; he had Julia along, and it was hard to know how Julia would take one death, let alone two. She knew his assignments oc­casionally included women, but this was a woman she'd seen up close, and that made it different.

Well, maybe both he and Carina would be lucky this time and Carmody would come back by himself. But then what? Carina would return and find the body, and just how much of a flap that raised would depend on whether or not he could make it look like natural causes. If not there'd be cops onboard the next time they made port, and he could probably handle the questioning until he had a chance to get off the ship and disappear. But once again, damn it, he had Julia along.

His mind kept working, trying to find a way, and then he stopped pacing and froze in his tracks. There was a key in the lock. So soon? How could they be done with din­ner already?

He braced himself. Let it be Carmody, he thought, and the door flew open.

It was Carina.

His hands were out in front of him, ready to stifle her cries of alarm. But there were no cries, nor did she seem at all alarmed.

"Thank God!" she said.

Huh?

"The way you look at me," she said, moving closer, kicking the door shut. "And I know you saw the looks I gave you in re­turn. But you have not approached me, and I saw you leave the dining room, and I thought maybe he's going to my cabin, and I made some excuse and-----"

She really was quite beautiful.

"But there's no time," she said. "Not now, he'll be here any minute. Oh, I want to be alone with you! What shall we do?"

"Uh...."

"Later tonight," she said. "One o'clock. No, 1:30; he'll definitely be asleep by then. I'll meet you on deck two out on the afterdeck."

"Uh, port or starboard?"

"All the way at the back," she said. "Be­hind the library. At the rail, at 1:30. Can you be there? Oh God, there's no time, but kiss me. You have to kiss me."

And she pressed her mouth to his.

"I don't get it," he told Julia. "I wonder what she wants."

"Your fair white body, if I had to guess."

"Not unless she thinks I'm a Hollywood casting director," he said. "And it's just as well I'm not, because she wouldn't get the part. She's not that good an actress."

"It was an act?"

" 'Oh, I want to be alone with you! What shall we do?' Yes, I'd say it was an act."

"I don't know," she said. "I frequently want to be alone with you. What shall we do? I ask myself that all the time."

"You usually come up with something."

When Keller left their cabin, it was a little after one and most of the ship's passen­gers had retired for the night. There were still holdouts in the bars and lounges, making up in volume what they'd lost in number, and a few passengers hung around on deck.

He got to the spot designated for their rendezvous 10 minutes ahead of schedule and found a vantage point where he could observe Carina's approach and assure himself that she didn't have anyone trail­ing her. He'd changed to dark clothing and found a dark spot to lurk.

One-thirty came and went. Keller stayed where he was, half hoping she'd stand him up. But then, seven minutes late by his watch, she hurried by without seeing him, positioned herself at the rail and looked around in what looked like genuine concern.

"Right here," Keller said softly and came out where she could see him.

"Oh thank God. I thought that you weren't coming or that you came and left when I was not here. I had to wait until he was sleeping. But come here, come kiss me."

She moved toward him, stopped when he held up a hand. "No kisses," he said. "You've got an agenda, and I want to know what it is."

"Agenda?"

"Tell me what you want."

"The same thing you want," she said. "I saw you looking at me.'

"Lots of men were looking at you."

"Yes, and women too. But there was something about the way you looked at me." She frowned, the original act shelved for now. "You don't want to fuck me?"

"You're a very attractive young woman," he said, "but I'm married, and no, I don't want to have sex with you."

She said something in a language he didn't recognize, frowned again, then looked up to meet his eyes as recognition dawned in hers. "Then what were you do­ing in my cabin?"

His hands were at his sides, and he raised them to waist level. There was no one around, and all he had to do was break her neck and fling her overboard. If she managed to cry out first, it might pass for a scream she'd uttered on the way down.

"Maybe we want the same thing," she said.

Oh? "Tell me what you want."

"What do I want?" She said the foreign word again. "What do you think I want? I want you to kill my husband."

In the morning he told Julia what had hap­pened. "Apparently they're married," he said. "That's why it took as long as it did for them to get to the ship Saturday afternoon. They went through a quickie wedding cer­emony first."

"Why? To make the cruise line happy?"

He shook his head. "Not the cruise line. The Witness Protection Program. After he testifies, they'll set him up in some town somewhere out West, but the only way she can be part of the deal is if she's his wife. And I guess he didn't think the local talent in East Frogskin would be up to his stan­dards, so he proposed."

"How romantic. But why did she go along? And why change her mind and want him dead?"

"Two questions with one answer."

"Money?"

He nodded. "He's got a lot of money, or at least she thinks he does. And she's living the life we figured, going on dates and get­ting presents, and the life's not that great and neither are the presents, and these are her peak years."

"She's got a lot of her youth left."

"But she can see what's coming. And here's this rich guy who wants to marry her."

"But that means living in, what did you call it? East Frogskin? And that's more than she signed on for?"

"Actually," he said, "I think it's what she signed on for, but that was before she had a chance to think it through."

"And now she wants to tear up the con­tract. Can't she divorce him? Get an annul­ment? But she wants the money."

"She also would like him to be dead."

"Oh, it's personal?"

"He takes a lot of Viagra," he said, "and he has certain preferences in bed that she doesn't care for."

"Like what?"

"She didn't get specific."

"What a tease. I bet I can guess, and I'd like to sit her down and explain that once you get used to it it's actually quite enjoy­able. Are you blushing?"

"No. It's not just what he likes to do, it's apparently that now that they're married she finds everything about him objectionable."

"And if he dies she's a rich widow."

"She was pitching one of the minders, the shorter of the two."

"The running back."

"Right. I guess he didn't push her away when she made her move."

"I guess he didn't have a wife along."

"I don't know if he was stringing her along or if she'd even made her pitch about how they could be together forever if only something happened to her husband. I can't think he'd have actually followed through with it. But when he and the tight end went off in the ambulance, her whole plan fell apart."

"And that's when she started giving you the eye."

"Along with a peek at what she had un­der her bikini top."

"And she thought it worked, because there you were waiting for her in her cabin. And when she found out she was wrong, she just went and made another plan. Except it's the same plan, isn't it? But with a different prize instead of her body. What's she offering? It would almost have to be money."

"An unspecified amount, payable after the estate's settled."

"Lord, who wouldn't rush to commit murder for terms like that?"

"She's given up the idea that I'm blinded by lust, but she evidently still thinks I'm pretty stupid. The first thing I explained was that we couldn't see each other again. I told her what we'd do for now was nothing at all, not until the last night of the cruise."

"So that we'll be off the ship by the time they find him."

"And so will everybody else. She'll be unable to rouse him, and they'll haul him off to a Fort Lauderdale hospital and pronounce him dead, and once the estate clears probate I'll get my very generous payment from an extremely grateful widow."

"So what's the next step?"

"Breakfast," he said. "I'm starving."

"I mean-----"

"I know what you mean. There's no next step until the night before we dock in Fort Lauderdale. All you and I have to do be­tween now and then is enjoy the cruise."

"My God," she said. "What a concept."

The fish on the menu that last night was marlin, lightly grilled and served with a brown butter sauce, but Keller asked for the filet mignon, medium rare. When you ordered fish, the waiter gave you an oddly shaped fish knife. No one ever seemed to use it, and Keller figured any piece offish he couldn't cut with the side of his fork was one he didn't much want to eat. When you ordered steak, they brought you a steak knife.

At 1:30 Keller scanned the sundeck. All was quiet, and he couldn't see anyone around. At dinner they'd requested that all bags be placed out in the corridor by three a.m. so crew members could collect them prior to departure.

Keller positioned himself in front of stateroom 501. Several pieces of luggage were on the deck to his right.

He knocked. Carina opened it at once, wearing a pale yellow nightgown to which he supposed the word diaphanous might apply. She made do with stating the obvious: "You're here."

He was, and so was Carmody, stretched out on the bed on his back, naked to the world but for a pair of boxer shorts and an arresting amount of body hair. The man's mouth was hanging open and he was breathing slowly and heavily through it.

"I put the powder in his nightcap," she said. "He drank it."

No kidding, Keller thought.

"He wanted to fuck me," she said, "but he passed out instead. You know where I can get some more of that powder?"

Keller had obtained it by crushing two capsules, collecting the powder in a folded-up slip of paper. He'd met Carina that afternoon and passed it to her, along with instructions for its use. If he'd given it to her earlier she might have rushed things, and he hadn't wanted that.

"Out like a light," she said. "Look at

him, hairy like an ape. You know what I almost did?"

"What?"

"Put a pillow over his face. I thought, What if he wakes up? But he wouldn't wake up. He's dead to the world, and a few min­utes with a pillow over his face and he'd stay that way forever. Save you the trouble, huh?"

He said, "It's good you restrained yourself."

"Why? I would have paid you all the same. You're the one gave me the magic powder."

"You want it to look like death by natu­ral causes."

"So? He stops breathing, his heart stops beating, he's dead. What's more natural than that?"

"He'd have these pinpoint hemorrhages in his eyeballs."

"So his eyes bleed, what do I care? What's it gonna hurt him if he's dead?"

"They'd see the hemorrhages," he said patiently, "and they'd know immediately that he'd been smothered."

"Fuck. Good I didn't do it."

"I'd say."

"So," she said, "how you gonna make it look natural?"

He moved quickly to the side of the bed, drew the steak knife from his pocket and sank it between two of Michael Car-mody's ribs and into his heart. The body shook with a brief tremor, the hands raised up an inch or so from the bed, and then all was still.

"Holy fuck!"

"Well," Keller said.

"You just killed him. Just like that."

"You're a rich widow. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"But you stabbed him! The knife's right there sticking out of him!"

"Good point," Keller said and removed the knife. There was hardly any blood on it.

"But won't they see the wound? How's that gonna look like natural causes?"

"Now that's a good question," he said and reached for her.

KELLER COULD PROBABLY ARRANGE

SOME SORT OF ACCIDENT. BUT

WITH THESE TWO AROUND, WOULD IT

PASS AS AN ACCIDENT?

Excerpted from the book Hit Me, forthcoming from Little, Broum and Company.