“I’m with the guy,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No names, all right? Straw hat with a red band on it. You were talking to him, what, twenty minutes ago? You want to pretend I’m talking Greek, or do you want to come with me?”

“Where?”

“He needs to see you.”

“But he just saw me!”

“Look, there’s a lot I don’t understand here,” Keller said, not untruthfully. “I’m just an errand boy. He coulda come himself, but is that what you want? To be seen in public in your own hotel with Slansky?”

“Slansky?”

“I made a mistake there,” Keller said, “using that name, which you wouldn’t know him by. Forget I said that, will you?”

“But…”

“Far as that goes, we shouldn’t spend too much time together. I’m going to walk out, and you finish your drink and sign the tab and then follow me. I’ll be waiting out front in a blue Honda Accord.”

“But…”

“Five minutes,” he told her, and left.

4

It took her more than five minutes, but under ten, and she got into the front seat of the Honda without any hesitation. He pulled out of the hotel lot and hit the button to lock her door.

While they drove around, ostensibly heading for a meeting with the man in the Panama hat (whose name wasn’t Slansky, but so what?), Keller learned that Floyd Turnbull, who’d had an affair with this woman, had sweet-talked her into investing in a real estate venture of his. The way it was set up, she couldn’t get her money out without a lengthy and expensive lawsuit-unless Turnbull died, in which case the partnership was automatically dissolved. Keller didn’t try to follow the legal part. He got the gist of it, and that was enough. The way she spoke about Turnbull, he got the feeling she’d pay a lot to see him dead, even if there was nothing in it for her.