Or forget the gun and just grab the poor bastard by the hair and the shirtfront. Yank him in through the open window, break his neck, then give him a shove and let him go.

Al might not be happy. But the job would be done, and what could they do, make him come back and do it over?

“Well,” Gregory Dowling said, straightening up and stepping back. “If there’s nothing else—”

“You’ve been a big help,” Keller told him.

He followed directions to the drugstore — it was as good a place as any to find a pay phone — and called the number. If he’d done that in the first place, he thought, the job would be done by now. Okay, fair enough, he’d make the call now, and if he got the green light he’d go right back and tell the fellow he must have misheard him, and they’d go through the farce again, only this time he’d use the gun or his hands and finish the job once and for all.

He made the call. “No, today’s no good,” he was told. “Give us a call first thing tomorrow morning.”

And he’d done just that, only to get the same message yet again. “Tomorrow,” the man told him. “Tomorrow’s a sure bet. In fact tomorrow morning you don’t even have to check with us, okay? Because it’s all set up. Anytime tomorrow, morning or afternoon, you can just go and do what you gotta do.”

“We’re all set for tomorrow,” he told Dot.

“High time.”

“You said it. I’ll be glad to get back.”

“Back to your own bed.”

“The bed’s okay. Tell you the truth, it’s better than my own. I’m overdue for a new mattress.”

“The things you don’t know about a person.”