Free Keller's Fedora (Kindle Single) by Lawrence Block

and what are their damn names?”
    “Only Frenchman I know is that guy Giuseppe, and he’s Italian.”
    “You’re a big help, Pete.”
    Alphonse and Gaston, Keller thought, but kept it to himself.
    “Pierre,” Roy said, “and Lucky Pierre. That’s not it, but it’ll do. So I headed for the Tiger, and Pete was already here when I pulled in.”
    “Took you long enough,” Pete said.
    “And we waited for Harold, and when we got tired of waiting we went in and had a couple of beers. And it wasn’t until the next day that we heard what happened to Harold.”
    “He got hammered,” Pete offered.
    “We all got hammered,” Roy said, “but with Harold it wasn’t just an expression. Guy followed him out, had to be a case of Harold got it on with somebody’s wife or girlfriend—”
    “Or daughter.”
    “Yeah, coulda been a daughter. Cops are working their way through the Wet Spot’s regulars, checking out everybody that mighta had it in for Harold.”
    Keller half-listened while the two of them worked their way through a lengthy list of potential suspects. Earlier, he’d remembered a job years ago that had sent him across the country to a town in Oregon, where someone had spotted a man who’d vanished into the Witness Protection Program. Keller liked the place, liked the life the man was leading there, and found himself contemplating retirement. It was just a fantasy, but in the course of it he’d made the horrible mistake of getting to know the fellow.
    When, inevitably, he’d come to his senses, his mission was consequently far more difficult. Still, you did what you had to do. But, having done it, you took pains to avoid such complications in the future.
    As Roy went on and on, now explaining how he’d known it was his duty to tell this woman on Robin’s Nest Drive what had happened to Harold, because otherwise she might never know, or she’d read it in the paper, or worst of all the police would turn up on her doorstep and give her the shock of her life, and—
    On and on and on, with Pete chiming in now and then, and with Roy admitting that, well, he had to admit he’d wanted to confirm some of the things Harold had told him about the lady, because Harold had a tendency to exaggerate, but in this instance Harold had it right, all right, and—
    All of this, he realized, was very different from what he’d gone through in Roseburg, Oregon. There he’d liked the man, and he’d had to set that aside and do his job. But here in Baker’s Bluff, the more time he spent with Roy and his friend Pete, the fewer his reservations about earning his fee. Every sentence spoken, every clap of that big hand on his shoulder, made Keller a little more eager to swing that brand-new Stanley hammer not merely with professionalism but with pleasure.
    And now, of course, it was out of the question.
    “B ACK IN A minute,” he said. “I want to hear the rest of this.”
    He got to his feet. Roy was in the middle of a sentence, but Roy was pretty much always in the middle of a sentence, and a call of nature was something a beer drinker could certainly understand. Keller went to the restroom, answered nature’s call, and left the room.
    Back in a minute. I want to hear the rest of this.
    Well, how was that for a pair of barefaced lies, one right after the other? He certainly didn’t want to hear anymore, nor would he be back, not in a minute and not in an hour. He walked out of the men’s room and down the hall and out the door, took a quick backward glance to make sure no one was paying attention, and crossed the lot to his car.
    He got behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition, and looked over at the passenger seat, where the hammer was waiting. He shouldn’t have bought the hammer, he thought. For that matter, he shouldn’t have bought that second ticket to Chicago. He should have stayed home.
    He got out the Pablo phone, made a call.
    “I can’t do anything,” he said. “I bought a hammer, it’s on the