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It wasn’t hard to find thearita’s roo for all the world like a pair of drunken lovers He made his way to the door of the master bedroom, which they had not troubled to close, and there they were, doing the dirty deed One glance established as much for Keller, and he quickly averted his eyes

The woh of her to match her with her pictures Not that he’d been inher Portsie And the h Keller couldn’t think why Had he seen him in the auction room? Jesus, was the sonofabitch a stamp collector?

He could take another look, but he didn’t really want to Keller had never regarded loveh school a classht some dirty pictures to class, and Keller had looked at theh school any them he could tell they were pretty rapped up in each other, and unlikely to offer much resistance if he went in there and did what he was supposed to do He rehearsed it in hispurposefully into the roo the lover out of the play with a judo chop to the side of the neck, grabbing the wo the same for the immobilized man It would all be over before they knew it, alht Don’t just stand there You knohat you’re supposed to do So why aren’t you doing it?

Maybe there was a better way

If he just went in there and got the job done, he’d have earned his fee--plus a bonus for the boyfriend But he’d also be leaving the kind of mess that would make headlines, and the cops would be all over their client It was Walmsley’s responsibility to provide hiood one, but would he have the sense to lawyer up right away and keep his mouth shut? Or would he fall apart when it became clear that he was the sole suspect?

Not Keller’s worry Walh to hang anybody else

Still, what if Keller left the Dallas cops a case they could close as soon as they opened it? He could see a way to do it, and earn a double bonus in the process

It would take tiarita’s room to wait

Was it the saer than he remembered

He left the door open He didn’t really want to hear the two of the them But he wanted to knohen they fell silent

And, while he waited, he ran an aht it would work, but there was still one question he couldn’t answer

Could he do it?

For a couple of years now he’d been leading a very different life, and it struck him as possible that he’d become a different person in the process He had a wife, he had a daughter, he had a house, he had a business He ht, and he and Donny ed to keep their cash receipts a secret fro individual, a reasonably solid citizen He’d always had a penchant for civic responsibility; he’d served on a jury when called, and volunteered at Ground Zero in the after he’d had this dark side, this other life, and he’d left that part of himself behind when he settled in New Orleans

So maybe that hat had led him to throw the bolt and lock hi now for a better opportunity Maybe he was stalling, and waiting for a chance to pull the plug on the whole operation

He h his mind And then it struck him that he couldn’t hear them anymore, and in fact hadn’t heard the? Could they have put their clothes on and gone out? If so, he decided, then he was going to say the hell with it He’d climb out theand drive away, and leave Portia Walmsley to work out for herself what had happened to herjuether But she’d get to stay alive, at least until her husband hired somebody else, and she’d never knohat a close call she’d had

Scratch that, he told hi on her back with herfashion And, lying beside her and snoring twice as loud, was the oaf she’d picked to be her boyfriend He still looked faured out why It was the mustache, identical in shape to that of Michael, his companion at breakfast

Keller found his way to the kitchen, and came back with a knife

Seven

Oh, it was a lazy day," he said "I got to talking with a US collector over breakfast, and wound up hanging out in the auction room to see how he did when his lots came up I meant to call earlier so I could talk to Jenny before her bedtiuess it’s too late now"

His first call, when he got back to his hotel room, was on his other cell phone, the one he used only for calls to Dot When there was no answer he put that phone away, got out the other one, and called Julia, and when he heard her voice he felt a great sense of relief

After the phone call, after she’d told him about her day and he’d ure out what that sense of relief was all about He hadn’t been aware of any anxiety until the sound of her voice dispelled it

It took him a few minutes to sort it out, but what he decided was that he’d been afraid his whole new life was gone, that he’d somehow thrown it away in the Spanish-style house on Caruth Boulevard Then he’d heard her voice and been reassured

Now, though, he wasn’t sure how he felt

He tried Dot again, watched a half hour of television, tried Dot onesoht to be hungry, but he didn’t have much of an appetite He checked the room-service menu and decided he could eat a sandwich, but when the waiter brought it he kneas a mistake There was coffee, and he drank that, but he left the sandwich untouched

Years ago he’d learned how to clear his mind after a job Very deliberately he let himself picture the master bedroom on Caruth Boulevard as he had last seen it Portia Walh the heart Beside her was her unnaers clenched around the hilt of the e you’d want to blink away, especially if you’d had so to do with it, but Keller fixed it in his ht it into focus, saw it in full color and sharp relief

And then, as he’d learned to do, he willed the irow s it through the wrong end of a telescope, and he washed out the bright colors, diray The details blurred, the faces becae disappeared, the incident itself lost its e around it, but it was as if it had happened years and years ago, and to somebody else

Keller, in line for the breakfast buffet, kneas going to get his money’s worth He’d put the roo the first bite of the sandwich, and went to bed uncertain if he’d be able to sleep on an e, and one of the first things that came to mind was an expression his mother had used now and then: My sto when the line caiven him a turn, but he used a twin-blade safety razor, hardly so you’d use to cut a throat, your own or anybody else’s

He piled his plate high and looked around for an e,a fork with one hand and beckoning to Keller with the other Keller, glad for the company, went over and joined him