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Hit and Run Lawrence Block 31090K 2023-08-31

"Sedona, Arizona"

"I know, it rhymes, just like New York, New York And there the resemblance ends It’s s’s beautiful, and the town doubles its population every twenty minutes, so a person could drop in out of the blue without drawing attention, and after six ured I’d drive there and see soh and decided the hell with seeing the country, so I sold the car and flew out to Phoenix and bought a new car and drove to Sedona I picked out a two-bedroom penthouse condo for olf course and froreat view of Bell Rock, and you probably don’t even knohat that is"

"A rock that chimes on the hour?"

"The hair’s different," she said, "but it’s still the same old Keller underneath it, isn’t it? As soon as I was settled in, I tried to work out a way of getting in touch with you, assu a séance I knew froe that you ht up with you, but if Al got to you first there wouldn’t have been anything in the papers And if you were alive, there was only one way I could think of to reach you without attracting anybody else’s attention, so that’s what I did"

"You placed an ad in Linn’s"

"I ran that dauessed there were so azines for stamp collectors? Besides Linn’s there’s Global Staazine the national stamp society sends its members--"

"The Aazine"

"Well, that’s a load off oddamn month Plus some others I can’t think of McBeal’s?"

"Mekeel’s"

"There you go I’ve got run-until-canceled status with all of thees show up onI should go on running the ad, because I was starting to feel like that football teaate for Elvis, just in case he shows up And he at least gets some free publicity out of it"

"It must have cost you quite a bit"

"Not really S-term basis The real cost was eot my credit card statement that was one more month without word from you, and it was that ain You at least had closure, Keller You knew for sure that I was dead, but I had to sit around wondering"

"I wonder which orse"

"You could probably ood case either way," she said, "but either e’re both alive, so the hell with it You saw the ad and called the nuured out that it was a number"

"Well, if Ioff the hook And I knew you’d work it out once you put your mind to it But what I still can’t understand is why it took you so long Not to work it out but to pay attention to it in the first place Howany kind of a bell?"

"Just once"

"Just once? How is that possible, Keller? I don’t suppose you could have had the post office forward your mail, but that ad ran in all the places I ot How hard is it to find a copy of Linn’s? Or send in and get a new subscription?"

"Not hard at all," he said, "but ould I bother? What would be the point? Dot, I saw the ad because Julia picked up a copy of Linn’s and brought it hoive it to me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to look at it"

"But you did"

"Obviously"

"What’s not obvious," she said, "is why you weren’t sure you wanted to, and why you didn’t have a subscription any, Keller Help me out"

"I don’t have a subscription," he said, "because it’s for stamp collectors, and it’s hard to be a stamp collector when you don’t have a collection"

She stared at him "You don’t know," she said

"I don’t knohat?"

"Of course you don’t How could you? You sort of glossed over that part, going to your apart attention, but--"

"I may not have mentioned it It’s one part I don’t like to think about I went to one"

"Gone, all ten albuuys, but whoever it was--"

"Neither of them"