Keller 05 - Hit Me by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: 2013-02-12T06:00:00+00:00

They had lunch on the ship, and shared a table with two women, both of them retired schoolteachers from Crawfordsville, Indiana, along with a stockbroker and his wife who had retired to Florida from North or South Dakota, Keller wasn’t sure which. The ambulance and its mission gave the six of them something to talk about.

“Now, I don’t believe I met either of the two men,” one of the schoolteachers said. “If I’ve got the names right, one was a Mr. Westin and the other was a Mr. Smith.”

“Should have been Smith and Wesson,” the stockbroker said. “Way I heard it, after they took them off to the hospital, the cabin attendants packed up their bags, and they found a small arsenal there. A couple of guns, anyway, and ammunition to fit them.”

“My goodness. On a cruise?”

“Oh, men and their guns,” the second teacher said. She was taller and bulkier than her companion, and built not unlike a tight end herself, or maybe a linebacker. “I understand there are men who feel naked without their guns. But here we are having lunch, and not knowing what they ate that made them so ill.”

“Nothing they ate,” the broker said. “It was evidently an allergic reaction to some sort of drug. Analeptic shock, I think they call it.”

“Anaphylactic,” the first teacher said.

“Guns and drugs,” the broker’s wife said. “And it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Two men, traveling together, and sharing a cabin.”

Her husband asked her what that was supposed to mean. She said it was just something to take into account.

In their own cabin, Julia said, “I’m still trying to figure it out. Was she suggesting they’re gay? And what would that have to do with them both getting sick at the same time?”

Keller shrugged. “Beats me. AIDS, maybe?”

“I suppose. ‘Two men sharing a cabin.’ I don’t know if you saw the look she got when she said that, but the schoolmarms didn’t appreciate the implication. Given that they’re two women sharing a cabin.”

“And they’re annoyed because they’re lesbians?”

“Or they’re not lesbians, and that’s why they’re annoyed. At the implication.”

“The world’s a complicated place,” Keller said.

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