“Just that it was already a real fine evening, Dale, but it would be heaven on earth if what you came to Martingale for was to kill my damn husband.”

Christ. Wasshe the client? Was the pickup downstairs a cute way for them to meet? Could she actually be that stupid, coming on in a public place to a man she was hiring to kill her husband?

For that matter, how had she recognized him? Only Dot and the man in White Plains had known the name he was using. They’d have kept it to themselves. And she’d made her move before she knew his name. Had she been able to recognize him? I see by your outfit that you are a hit man? Something along those lines?

“Yarnell,” she was saying. “Hobart Lee Yarnell, and what he’d like is for people to call him Bart, and what everybody calls him is Hobie. Now what does that tell you about the man?”

That he’s not the man I came here to kill, Keller thought. This was comforting to realize, but left her waiting for an answer to her question. “That’s he’s not used to getting his own way,” Keller said.

She laughed. “He’s not,” she said, “but it’s not for lack of trying. You know, I like you, Dale. You’re a nice fellow. But if it wasn’t you tonight it would have been somebody else.”

“And here I thought it was my aftershave.”

“I’ll just bet you did. No, the kind of marriage I got, I come around here a lot. I’ve put a lot of quarters in that jukebox the last year or so.”

“And played a lot of cheating songs?”

“And done a fair amount of cheating. But it doesn’t really work. I still wake up the next day married to that bastard.”

“Why don’t you divorce him?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“And?”

“I was brought up not to believe in it,” she said. “But I don’t guess that’s it. I wasn’t raised to believe in cheating, either.” She frowned. “Money’s part of it,” she admitted. “I won’t bore you with the details, but I’d get gored pretty bad in a divorce.”