EQMM, May 2008 Read online

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cover Illustration by Norman Saunders, from the collection of Robert Lesser

  CONTENTS

  Fiction: KELLER THE DOGKILLER by Lawrence Block

  Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider

  Fiction: MOTHER DEAR by Robert Barnard

  Fiction: THE PROBLEM OF THE SECRET PATIENT by Edward D. Hoch

  Novelette: MOTIVE by Hideo Yokoyama

  Special Feature: 2007 Readers Award

  Fiction: SUCHNESS by Rosemary M. Magee

  Fiction: THE OTHER HALF by Mick Herron

  Fiction: THE GOOD FATHER by William Link

  Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen

  Fiction: THE QUARRY by Larry D. Sweazy

  Poetry: DEATH OF THE PARTY by Cornelia Snider Yarrington

  Poetry: PAPERCUTS by Lisa Atkinson

  Fiction: MS. GRIMSHANK REGRETS by Nancy Pickard

  NEXT ISSUE...

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  Fiction: KELLER THE DOGKILLER by Lawrence Block

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  Art by Mark Evans

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  Readers who enjoy this new Keller story from Lawrence Block—adapted from one of the vignettes that comprised his 2006 Keller book Hit Parade—won't want to miss the new novel starring the hit man, Hit and Run, sure to be witty, and due to be released by William Morrow in June of 2008. Also in 2008, Hard Case Crime will reissue one of Mr. Block's vintage mysteries, A Diet of Treacle.

  * * * *

  Keller, trying not to feel foolish, hoisted his flight bag and stepped to the curb. Two cabs darted his way, and he got into the winner, even as the runner-up filled the air with curses. “JFK,” he said, and settled back in his seat.

  "Which airline?"

  He had to think about it. “American."

  "International or domestic?"

  "Domestic."

  "What time's your flight?"

  Usually they just took you there. Today, when he didn't have a plane to catch, he got a full-scale inquiry.

  "Not to worry,” he told the driver. “We've got plenty of time."

  Which was just as well, because it took longer than usual to get through the tunnel, and the traffic on the Long Island Expressway was heavier than usual for that hour. He'd picked this time—early afternoon—because the traffic tended to be light, but today for some reason it wasn't. Fortunately, he reminded himself, it didn't matter. Time, for a change, was not of the essence.

  "Where you headed?” the driver asked, while Keller's mind was wandering.

  "Panama,” he said, without thinking.

  "Then you want International, don't you?"

  Why on earth had he said Panama? He'd been wondering if he should buy a straw hat, that was why. “Panama City,” he corrected himself. “That's in Florida, you change planes in Miami."

  "You got to fly all the way down to Miami and then back up again to Panama City? Ought to be a better way to do it."

  Thousands of cab drivers in New York, and for once he had to draw one who could speak English. “Air miles,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument, and they left it at that.

  At the designated terminal, Keller paid and tipped the guy, then carried his flight bag past the curbside check-in. He followed the signs down to Baggage Claim and walked around until he found a woman holding a hand-lettered sign that read “Niebauer."

  She hadn't noticed him, so he took a moment to notice her, and to determine that no one else was paying any attention to either of them. She was around forty, a trimly-built woman wearing a skirt and blouse and glasses. Her brown hair was medium length, attractive if not stylish, her sharp nose contrasted with her generous mouth, and on balance he'd have to say she had a kind face. This, he knew, was no guarantee of anything. You didn't have to be kind to have a kind face.

  He approached her from the side, and got within a few feet of her before she sensed his presence, turned, and stepped back, looking a little startled. “I'm Mr. Niebauer,” he said.

  "Oh,” she said. “Oh, of course. I ... you surprised me."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I had noticed you, but I didn't think...” She swallowed, started over. “I guess you don't look the way I expected you to look."

  "Well, I'm older than I was a few hours ago."

  "No, I don't mean ... I don't know what I mean. I'm sorry. How was your flight?"

  "Routine."

  "I guess we have to collect your luggage."

  "I just have this,” he said, holding up the flight bag. “So we can go to your car."

  "We can't,” she said. She managed a smile. “I don't have one, and couldn't drive it if I did. I'm a city girl, Mr. Niebauer. I never learned to drive. We'll have to take a cab."

  There was a moment, of course, when Keller was sure he'd get the same cab, and he could see himself trying to field the driver's questions without alarming the woman. Instead they got into a cab driven by a jittery little man who talked on his cell phone in a language Keller couldn't recognize while his radio was tuned to a talk program in what may or may not have been the same unrecognizable language.

  Keller, once again trying not to feel foolish, settled in for the drive back to Manhattan.

  * * * *

  Two days earlier, on the wraparound porch of the big old house in White Plains, Keller hadn't felt foolish. What he'd felt was confused.

  "It's in New York,” he said, starting with the job's least objectionable aspect. “I live in New York. I don't work there."

  "You have."

  "A couple of times,” he allowed, “and it worked out all right, all things considered, but that doesn't make it a good idea."

  "I know,” Dot said, “and I almost turned it down without consulting you. And not just because it's local."

  "That's the least of it."

  "Right."

  "It's short money,” he said. “It's ten thousand dollars. It's not exactly chump change, but it's a fraction of what I usually get."

  "The danger of working for short money,” she said, “is word gets around. But one thing we'd make sure of is nobody knows you're the one who took this job. So it's not a question of ten thousand dollars versus your usual fee, because your usual fee doesn't come into the picture. It's ten thousand dollars for two or three days’ work, and I know you can use the work."

  "And the money."

  "Right. And, of course, there's no travel. Which was a minus the first time we looked at it, but in terms of time and money and all of that—"

  "Suddenly it's a plus.” He took a sip of his iced tea. “Look, this is stupid. We're not talking about the most important thing."

  "I know."

  "The, uh, subject is generally a man. Sometimes it's a woman."

  "You're an equal-opportunity kind of guy, Keller."

  "One time,” he said, “somebody wanted me to do a kid. You remember?"

  "Vividly."

  "We turned them down."

  "You're damn right we did."

  "Adults,” he said. “Grownups. That's where we draw the line."

  "Well,” she said, “if it matters, the subject this time around is an adult."

  "How old is he?"

  "Five."

  "A five-year-old adult,�
� he said heavily.

  "Do the math, Keller. He's thirty-five in dog years."

  "Somebody wants to pay me ten thousand dollars to kill a dog,” he said. “Why me, Dot? Why can't they call the SPCA?"

  "I wondered that myself,” she said. “Same token, every time we get a client who wants a spouse killed, I wonder if a divorce wouldn't be a better way to go. Why call us? Has Raoul Felder got an unlisted phone number?"

  "But a dog, Dot."

  She took a long look at him. “You're thinking about Nelson,” she said. “Am I right or am I right?"

  "You're right."

  Nelson, an Australian cattle dog, had entered Keller's life in unexpected fashion, and made an equally surprising exit. He'd acquired the animal upon the death of a client, and lost it when the woman he'd hired to walk it—Andria, her name was, and she painted her toes all the colors of the rainbow—walked out of his life, and took Nelson with her.

  "Keller,” she said, “I met Nelson, and I liked Nelson. Nelson was a friend of mine. Keller, this dog is no Nelson."

  "If you say so."

  "In fact,” she said, “if Nelson saw this dog and trotted over to give him a friendly sniff, that would be the end of Nelson. This dog's a pit bull, Keller, and he's enough to give the breed a bad name."

  "The breed already has a bad name."

  "And I can see why. If this dog was a movie actor, Keller, he'd be Jack Elam."

  "I always liked Jack Elam."

  "You didn't let me finish. He'd be like Jack Elam, but nasty."

  "What does he do, Dot? Eat children?"

  She shook her head. “If he ever bit a kid,” she said, “or even snarled good and hard at one, that'd be the end of him. The law's set up to protect people from dogs. What with due process and everything, he might rip the throats out of a few tykes before the law caught up with him, but once it did he'd be out of the game and on his way to Doggie Heaven."

  "Would he go to heaven? I mean, if he killed a kid—"

  "All dogs go to heaven, Keller, even the bad ones. Where was I?"

  "He doesn't bite children."

  "Never has. Loves people, wants to make nice to everyone. If he sees another dog, however, or a cat or a ferret or a hamster, it's another story. He kills it."

  "Oh."

  "He lives with his owner in the middle of Manhattan,” she said, “and she takes him to Central Park and lets him off his leash, and whenever he gets the chance he kills something. You're going to ask why somebody doesn't do something."

  "Well, why don't they?"

  "Because about all you can do, it turns out, is sue the owner, and about all you can collect is the replacement value of your pet, and you've got to go through the legal system to get that much. You can't have the dog put down for killing other dogs, and you can't press criminal charges against the owner. Meanwhile, you've still got the dog out there, a menace to other dogs."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "Hardly anything does, Keller. Anyway, a couple of women lost their pets and they don't want to take it anymore. One had a twelve-year-old Yorkie and the other had a frisky Weimaraner pup, and neither one had a chance against Fluffy, and—"

  "Fluffy?"

  "I know."

  "This killer pit bull is named Fluffy?"

  "That's his call name. He's registered as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Keller, whom you'll recall as the author of ‘Ozymandias.’ I suppose they could call him Percy, or Bysshe, or even Shelley, but instead they went for Fluffy."

  And Fluffy went for the Yorkie and the Weimaraner, with tragic results. As Dot explained it, this did seem like a time when one had to go outside the law to get results. But did they have to turn to a high-priced hit man? Couldn't they just do it themselves?

  "You'd think so,” Dot said. “But this is New York, Keller, and these are a couple of respectable middle-class women. They don't own guns. They could probably get their hands on a bread knife, but I can't see them trying to stab Fluffy, and evidently neither can they."

  "Even so,” he said, “how did they find their way to us?"

  "Somebody knew somebody who knew somebody."

  "Who knew us?"

  "Not exactly. Someone's ex-husband's brother-in-law is in the garment trade, and he knows a fellow in Chicago who can get things taken care of. And this fellow in Chicago picked up the phone, and next thing you know my phone was ringing."

  "And he said, ‘Have you got anybody who'd like to kill a dog?’”

  "I'm not sure he knows it's a dog. He gave me a number to call, and I drove twenty miles and picked up a pay phone and called it."

  "And somebody answered?"

  "The woman who's going to meet you at the airport."

  "A woman's going to meet me? At an airport?"

  "She had somebody call Chicago,” Dot said, “so I told her I was calling from Chicago, and she thinks you're flying in from Chicago. So she'll go to JFK to meet a flight from Chicago, and you'll show up, looking like you just walked off a plane, and she'll never guess that you're local."

  "I don't have a Chicago accent."

  "You don't have any kind of an accent, Keller. You could be a radio announcer."

  "I could?"

  "Well, it's probably a little late in life for a career change, but you could have. Look, here's the thing. Unless Fluffy gets his teeth in you, your risk here is minimal. If they catch you for killing a dog, about the worst that can happen to you is a fine. But they won't catch you, because they won't look for you, because catching a dog killer doesn't get top priority at the NYPD. But what we don't want is for the client to suspect that you're local."

  "Because it could blow my cover sooner or later."

  "I suppose it could,” she said, “but that's the least of it. The last thing we want is people thinking a top New York hit man will kill dogs for chump change."

  * * * *

  "The person I spoke to said there was no need for us to meet. She told me all I had to do was supply the name and address of the dog's owner, and you could take it from there. But that just didn't seem right to me. Suppose you got the wrong dog by mistake? I'd never forgive myself."

  That seemed extreme to Keller. There had been a time in St. Louis when he'd gotten the wrong man, through no fault of his own, and it hadn't taken him terribly long to forgive himself. On the other hand, forgiving himself came easy to him. His, he'd come to realize, was a forgiving nature.

  "Is the coffee all right, Mr. Niebauer? It feels strange calling you Mr. Niebauer, but I don't know your first name. Though come to think of it I probably don't know your last name either, because I don't suppose it's Niebauer, is it?"

  "The coffee's fine,” he said. “And no, my name's not Niebauer. It's not Paul, either, but you could call me that."

  "Paul,” she said. “I always liked that name."

  Her name was Evelyn, and he'd never had strong feelings about it one way or another, but he'd have preferred not to know it, just as he'd have preferred not to be sitting in the kitchen of her West End Avenue apartment, and not to know that her husband was an attorney named George Augenblick, that they had no children, and that their eight-month-old Weimaraner had answered to the name of Rilke.

  "I suppose we could have called him Rainer,” she said, “but we called him Rilke.” He must have looked blank, because she explained that they'd named him for Rainer Maria Rilke. “He had the nature of a German Romantic poet,” she added, “and of course the breed is German in origin. From Weimar, as in Weimar Republic. You must think I'm silly, saying a young dog had the nature of a poet."

  "Not at all."

  "George thinks I'm silly. He humors me, which is good, I suppose, except he's careful to make it clear to me and everyone else that that's what he's doing. Humoring me. And I in turn pretend I don't know about his girlfriends."

  "Uh,” Keller said.

  They'd come to her apartment because they had to talk somewhere. They'd shared long silences in the cab, interrupted briefly by observation
s about the weather, and her kitchen seemed a better bet than a coffee shop, or any other public place. Still, Keller wasn't crazy about the idea. If you were dealing with pros, a certain amount of client contact was just barely acceptable. With amateurs, you really wanted to keep your distance.

  "If he knew about you,” Evelyn said, “he'd have a fit. It's just a dog, he said. Let it go, he said. You want another dog, I'll buy you another dog. Maybe I am being silly, I don't know, but George, George just doesn't get the point."

  She'd taken her glasses off while she was talking, and now she turned her eyes on him. They were a deep blue, and luminous.

  "More coffee, Paul? No? Then maybe we should go look for that woman and her dog. If we can't find her, at least I can show you where they live."

  * * * *

  "Rilke,” he told Dot. “How do you like that for a coincidence? A Weimaraner and a pit bull, and they're both named after poets."

  "What about the Yorkie?"

  "Evelyn thinks his name was Buster. Of course, that could just be his call name, and he could have been registered as John Greenleaf Whittier."

  "Evelyn,” Dot said thoughtfully.

  "Don't start."

  "Now how do you like that for a coincidence? Because that's just what I was about to say to you."

  * * * *

  His name aside, there was nothing remotely fluffy about Percy Bysshe Shelley. Nor did his appearance suggest an evil nature. He looked capable and confident, and so did the woman who held on to the end of his leash.

  Her name, Keller had learned, was Aida Cuppering, and she was at least as striking in looks as her dog, with strong features and deeply set dark eyes and an athletic stride. She wore tight black jeans and black lace-up boots and a leather motorcycle jacket with a lot of metal on it, chains and studs and zippers, and she lived alone on West Eighty-seventh Street half a block from Central Park, and, according to Evelyn Augenblick, she had no visible means of support.

  Keller wasn't so sure about that. It seemed to him that she had a means of support, and that it was all too visible. If she wasn't making a living as a dominatrix, she ought to make an appointment right away for vocational counseling.