Keller's Fedora (Kindle Single) Read Online Free PDF Page A

he couldn’t believe what just happened to him.”
    “I’d say he gets to live another day, Pablo.”
    “That’s what I thought, but—”
    “But the possibility had to be raised. I agree with you there. But this was just her way of saying thank you. ‘Here’s two bucks and a hand job, young man, because I’m not the type to blow you off with a mere dollar.’”
    “So to speak,” he said.
    “Fair enough. She’s a piece of work, our Mrs. Overmont. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.”
    “Oh,” he said.
    “You say something, Pablo?”
    “The garage door’s going up,” he reported.
    “In a minute she’ll be on her way.”
    “I don’t see her. Oh, there she is, at the front door. She’s standing on the stoop.”
    “Clutching a small bottle of hand lotion.”
    “No,” he said.
    “On her way to the car.”
    “I don’t think so, because she’s not carrying her purse. Would she go out without it? Oh.”
    “Oh?”
    “A white car turning into the driveway,” he said. “Except it’s more of a van. There’s a man driving, has a sort of Marlboro Man look to him.”
    “That’s going back a ways, the Marlboro Man. Didn’t they all die of lung cancer?”
    “She’s waving. I think she’s glad to see him.”
    “You don’t figure that’s a gun in her pocket?”
    “And now she’s back inside the house. She just closed the door.”
    “You know, this is wonderful, Pablo. Getting a play-by-play like this, it’s almost like I’m watching it with my own two eyes. Why’d you stop?”
    “Because nothing’s happening,” he said. “Oh, there you go.”
    “What?”
    “The garage door’s closing. I guess she walked over and pressed the button. The garage is attached, he can go in straight from there, the way she did with the groceries.”
    “So it’s closed and his van’s in there.”
    “Right.”
    “He could be the gardener,” she said, “or the electrician, or the guy who takes care of the pool. The pool guy, I guess you call him.”
    “Is there a pool?”
    “How would I know? You’re the one who’s sitting there. If you can’t see whether or not there’s a pool in the backyard—”
    “If there is, I couldn’t see it from here. The house is in the way.”
    “My guess,” she said, “is it’s probably not the pool guy. Or the cable guy, or the guy to fix the furnace or change the filters on the air-conditioners. What do you figure, central air or window units?”
    “Huh?”
    “Never mind, because if it was any of those guys his car would be parked in plain sight in the driveway, not stashed away in the garage next to her Mercedes.”
    “Lexus.”
    “Whatever. I think you’re done with the detecting part, Pablo. Now it’s time to switch hats.”
    “What did you just say?”
    “That you can quit being Sherlock Holmes and do what you were born to do.”
    “You said something about hats.”
    “It’s an expression, for God’s sake. Switching hats, meaning playing a different role.”
    He took the fedora from his head, looked at it, put it back on again. “Never mind,” he said. “I was confused for a minute there.” Something occurred to him. “Dot, do I need to get into the house and take pictures?”
    “What, of the two of them in a compromising position?”
    “Well, do I?”
    There was a pause, and he wondered if perhaps the Pablo phone had gone dead. Then she said, “Maybe I didn’t make this clear. He’s not looking to divorce the woman.”
    “I know that, but—”
    “In fact he’s very clear that he doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
    “I got that, but—”
    “All the man wants,” she said, “is for the other man in her life to stop being in her life. Or in anybody’s life, including his own.”
    “I just thought he might want proof,” he said, “that we didn’t, you know, just pick somebody at random.”
    She thought it over. She said, “Okay, our client doesn’t know who the guy is, so how does he know we’ve