Grayson, wearing a suit, was sitting on the couch, rubbing at his swollen cheekbone, darkening eye. This black cop with long lashes sitting beside him. His holster empty. A ribbon of blood coming out of his kinky hair, wandering across his forehead. His fine, straight nose was puffy. But his eyes were fired up, Irv could see that plain enough. He thought that between the two of these assholes the cop was the better listener. So he talked to him. Fuck Grayson.
“You know, this guy, this lawyer, man”—talking earnestly to Sugarman—“he’s one crooked son of a bitch. This guy figured he’d come in here, hide behind the couch, ambush me, and then steal this money and use it to buy this land he’s so hot about. The fucker claims I’m going to blackmail him. Imagine that. Got the balls to sneak into my house and try to hit me. You don’t shoot a shooter, man. Isn’t that right, cop?”
Sugarman said nothing. Measuring angles, distances from here to there, flexing his feet, remembering how he could once explode into a slot between big blockers, remembering that surge out of a three-point stance.
“Irv, don’t be a moron,” Grayson said. “I can get you out of this. It hasn’t gone so far yet. There’re still ways out. Can’t you see what’s happening here? I was conned. This guy Thorn concocted this whole thing. The son of a bitch ran one on me, turned me against you. But all we got to do is, we wipe out these two and it’s all clear between us. You take the million and we walk.”
“I already got the million, you dork,” Irv said. “Guy like you should see he’s got no bargaining power here. Trick to negotiating is you got to have something to trade, fuckhead. And you, man, you got nothing. Nothing.”
“I know the law,” Grayson said. “I can finesse us out of trouble here. You just calm down a second, you’ll see that.”
The silencer made two pfftts. Twin bottle rockets launching. Grayson’s head snapped back against the wall, and his body slumped onto Sugarman. Sugarman pushed Grayson away from him, and the corpse rolled onto the other arm of the couch.
Irv said, “Shit! I meant to ask him where he got his hair cut.”
Irv rubbed at the black oil on his face. Smeared it. Scratched at his nose backhanded and sniffed. Brought his hand to his ragged ear and touched it gingerly.
He edged backward to the counter, patted his left hand around back there, and found a mason jar. He picked it up and held it up for Sugarman to see.
“I’ve been saving this,” he said, “for a time I needed a little extra go power. Know what this is?” He smiled at Sugarman. “This is magic, man. This is a five-carat diamond and a ruby big as your eyeball, been marinating in this water all summer. I heard about this, man, it’s like drinking a gallon of adrenaline. Diamond power, ruby power.” Irv held the bottle under his gun arm and unscrewed the cap and took a cautious sip of it, watching Sugarman. He gasped and said, “Fucking superman, diamond power. Better than gorilla jism.”
Glass broke from someplace nearby. Sounded like upstairs. Irv choked a little on the water. He moved quickly to the sliding glass door. Somebody was yelling now from two town houses down. The old fart down there having it out with his old fart wife, Irv guessed. Jeez, he was jumpy.
When he turned back, the black cop was standing up, holding his hand out like he was directing traffic, telling Irv to stop, going to wave on the other cars.
“Listen, fellow,” Sugarman said, “if you’re bright as I think you are, you’ll just—”
Irv brought the automatic up, leveled it at Sugarman. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and set the mason jar back on the counter. Outside there was a thwock, sound of a hammer cracking bricks. Irv glared hard at Sugarman as though he were up to something.
Irv waved the automatic at him. “You got a death wish, man?”
“No,” Sugarman said, and stepped back, lowering his hand.
“Hey, now let’s talk about you,” said Irv. He smiled and tried breathing his heart back into regular pace. “I got this new policy. I don’t wet strangers anymore. I got to get to know you good. Gourmet shit. Touchy feely. Heavy-duty emotions. California, acting school workout. People getting into very good touch with their inner life and all that.
“Like, for instance, who the fuck are you, cop? And what in fuck’s name are you doing in my home?”
“You’re still standing there, so you don’t know it yet,” said Sugarman, “but they already split you open, doing an autopsy on your brain to see what kind of cancer you got up there screwing up your mind.”
“Whoo-whoo,” Irv said. “I’m pissing down my leg.”
Irv was coiling that trigger finger, half a pound of pressure away from doing this guy when something whacked the picture window that looked out on the golf course. Irv did a jerky jig as if the floor were suddenly electrified, almost dropping the Smith & Wesson in the process.
“Place is quiet three hundred and sixty-four days a year, and today the old farts decide to go three falls, Texas no-rules wrestling.”
Watching Sugarman, Irv moved over to the picture window. He had the curtains halfway open when another whack against the glass shattered the whole pane.
Irv screamed. He spun around and focused everything he had on Sugarman, sighting down that long silencer, shivering. And he screamed at Sugarman, nothing coherent, no words.
Glass all over the rug, the dining room table. The hot, sticky afternoon wind coming into the room. Irv breathing so hard he might’ve just carried Milburn on his back up six flights of stairs. But he blinked a couple of times, got the room back out of the mist. There was a golf ball rolling across the dining room floor.
“Get over there, Broderick Crawford,” Irv said, motioning Sugarman toward the sliding glass doors, the patio. “Get your goddamn negroid hands up in the air.” Another ball sailed through the window, hit the kitchen cabinets, ricocheted against the refrigerator, and wound up spinning around inside the sink.
Irv was thinking now maybe it was just the diamond water starting to take effect, heating up his blood. Maybe none of this was happening.
29
THORN WAS DOWN to the last dozen balls. But he was catching on. Three into Irv’s window, the second one taking it all out. Before that he’d sprayed a few around, even sent one flying clear over the roof. That swing had felt particularly good. He tried to get his body to repeat that motion, but the next few stayed low, drilling into backyard fences. He made hash of the windshield on a white BMW. Somebody had left it around the side of the building, getting ready to wash and wax.
And the old couple, boy, he’d made their month, renewed their enthusiasm for living. The old guy had decided it was Dunkirk or Anzio or something. He’d found a deer rifle and was standing in his broken-out upstairs window, gesturing at Thorn with it, yelling at him. Was he crazy, hitting golf balls through civilized people’s windows! Guess so, Thorn had said to himself, and cranked another one, this one hooking off to knock out somebody’s security spotlight.
Sarah had shouted to him, too. Just his name, like she was calling down a long corridor at night, checking to see if it was him or some stranger. He didn’t answer. It was some stranger. And now she was staying a safe way back, on the steps to the dock. Thorn felt the skin on his back lifting, wrinkling, bumps running under his armpits and down his ribs. Out there in all that sunlight, probably close to two o’clock. High tide or thereabouts. Having chills on the fairway.
He wiggled his hips a little, the way he’d seen somebody do once. Maybe that was a baseball player. All these land games, he’d not paid enough attention. Set his feet again. Addressed the ball. Head down. He’d heard about the trick of tying a tight string from pecker to head. Try to bob your head up then. People could get serious about games, risking injury of that sort.
He had six or seven balls left when Irv came outside. Thorn was just getting set, adjusting his grip, straightening that left elbow. Sighting on Irv’s busted-out window.
And goddamn if Irv wasn’t prodding Sugarman in front of him. Sugarman, raising his hands, but only up to
about his chest, peering at Thorn now as if he were trying to see through fog. And behind him was Irv, wearing camouflage goop on his face, and blood dried in a wavering trail down his neck. Though he couldn’t see it, Thorn knew the silencer was back of Sugarman, that these were now the seconds that counted, that all the other minutes and hours and months had been narrowing into these moments. Glad for that. For any kind of finish.
He tamped the ground around the tee with the black flat-sided driver. Gave another hip wiggle, brought everything in line, and let it rip. A slice, curved ten feet right of Irv and Sugarman and sailed out into the avenue, bounced along toward the pro shop. But Irv reacted as if a warhead had skimmed him, dropping to a squat, pulling Sugarman down by the collar, and shielding himself with Sugarman’s bulk.
“Hey!” he screamed at Thorn. “Hey, cunt, what in the fuck are you doing? You blind or what? There’s people out here, right in front of you!” He rose and dragged Sugarman up with him.
Sugarman sending some play calls with his eyes, but Thorn couldn’t read them. Sugar darted his eyes over toward a sand trap that dropped off ten feet to his right. Thorn tried to say back to him, What? I can’t tell what you’re saying. Finally just giving a full shrug, face shrugging, too.
Irv screwed his face into a broad, unhappy grin and said, “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe what I’m seeing here.” He brought the automatic out from behind Sugarman, stepped back a step, waggled the pistol at Thorn.
“You, man,” said Irv, glaring at Thorn. “I know your ass, don’t I?” Irv snorted and smiled. “Jesus fucking Christ, look who it is, Sugarbear. This is the guy I was doing for what’s her name, Ricki. Is this something else or what? The guy with the dead mother.”
Thorn pulled another of those hot balls from the small pile, feeling comfortable now using the driver like a rake. He stooped, set the ball on the tee, straightened, assumed the position again, and tried to let his weight shift down into this hips this time. Give him twenty years, and he’d learn how to do this thing. Twenty years was about how long it took him on anything with any complexity to it.
“Look it,” Irv said, inching closer now, nudging Sugarman with him. “How come you aren’t dead, man? I heard you got exploded.”
Sugarman said, “You got another guy. A friend of ours.”
“Well, I’ll be fucked, man.” Smiling now, a wide, toothy smile, but his eyes seeming to Thorn to be dead, flat and empty. Thorn adjusted the grip again, decided to try hooking fingers the way he’d done back with Dr. Bill standing behind him, conforming his body to Thorn’s, showing him how it was done. One of the few times the man had ever embraced him.
“Would you look at this shit, man? My hits are coming to me. I don’t even have to look them up anymore. They hear I’m after their ass, and they go, ‘Whoops, I’m dead. Might as well get over there.’ ”
The old man in the upstairs window was holding his rifle now at present arms. Thorn took a look around for Sarah but didn’t find her. He came back to Irv, this wiry guy, trying so hard to be smartass, wanting Thorn to say something, anything, so he could top him. Worst thing you could do to a guy like this was give him nothing to feed on, passive-aggressive him. Irv was snaking his head out and back, like a disco duck, keeping a fast beat, watching Thorn. Maybe a little admiration had worked into his face for Thorn’s loony performance, the clothes. Something this class clown could relate to.
“I love it,” Irv said. “Don’t you love it, cop? Guys I’m hired to kill are lining up outside my place, saving me the trouble.” When Sugarman gave him no response, Irv poked him hard in the back. “OK, show’s over. We’re out of here now. Back inside, where we can have a good old-fashioned encounter session. Get out of these damaging rays. Guy in my business has to watch his skin.”
Thorn heard it now. Not much louder than a lawn mower a block away. He really exaggerated the hip wiggle this time. Let the wiggle run all the way up his body so his shoulders were doing it, too. Give this guy something to watch. He let his neck go loose and wiggled his head, too. One of those kid’s toys, held upright by a string running through its parts. You press the button in the bottom, loosen all the strings, and the thing collapses. That was definitely Thorn, a button push away from falling in a heap.
The noise building now, a drone. Thorn drew his club back a foot and brought it back to the ball, did that again. One to get ready, two to get set.
“Forget that, asshole, no more games,” Irv said. “Put the club down. Fucking now!”
The DC-3 broke into view over the tall mangroves on Thompson Island, the huge thunder now, the rumble rising as if up through the hard earth. And Thorn went about his golf business. Nothing happening, taking a quick peek at Sugarman, who was leaning toward the sand trap. Thorn focusing everything on that ball, picturing its trajectory, a cartoon hole through Irv’s forehead.
Irv screamed something, waved the pistol around, fired up at Jerome as he skimmed not fifteen feet above the fairway, dumping what must have been half his normal load for the whole twenty-mile island, all right there.
Though he could not see anymore, his eyes burning, Thorn found the rhythm again, cocked the driver back, and sailed one into the depths of that smog. Then he dropped to his knees, fanning for air, and hearing now the small poofs from Irv’s pistol, and seeing a divot appear in the fairway a few inches from his right hand. He rolled quickly to the left. No visibility at all. Not a foot. He continued to roll, and then the real gunfire sounded.
One, two, three. Regular intervals. Very, very loud in that billowing blue-gray smoke. Four, five. And the rumble was returning for another pass. Jerome going above and beyond. The crescendo louder and louder. The concrete fairway quaked. It sounded as if Jerome had gouged holes in the mufflers before he’d left. Thorn felt the heavy whoosh of air before the plane came, the surge and suck of wind as it passed. And more diesel fuel, Malathion. Man, they wouldn’t have mosquito troubles on this golf course for at least a month.
There was no sound for a while as Thorn lay on his belly, breathing into the short grass, getting sand on his lips, swallowing some. But in a few moments he made out a harsh click, the fall of a hammer on empty cylinders. A breeze was lifting the poisonous cloud, shredding it. Thorn crawled toward the noise, dragging himself on knees and elbows, hauling along the Ben Hogan.
He heard someone coughing off to his right, but he continued to pull himself forward toward the clicking noise. Getting a little buzz from all that poison, head swimming. He knew better than to attempt a normal thought and watch it dissolve or turn crazy. He kept his mind on that click and wriggled across the grass.
Then there was a shoe, the sole of a shoe in his face. It was a small foot, waffle-sole running shoe. Its mate was next to it, spread a couple of feet away.
A breeze lifted more of the gas, and Thorn was looking into the crotch of a pair of black shiny pajamas. Guy was just lying there, taking it easy, waiting for the mist to clear. Rolling suddenly onto his side, Thorn got his other hand on the club’s rubber grip and took as much of a swing as his awkward position would allow, bringing Ben Hogan thudding down on that shiny crotch.
“Too late,” he heard Sugarman say.
Thorn up on his knees now, cocked for another swing.
The last of the fumes carried away on the easterly. There was Sugarman, prying the Colt out of Sarah’s hand. Both of them standing above Irv, Sarah staring down at the body, a spasm in her trigger finger. Click. Sugarman pulling the fingers open, click. Click.
It was almost sunset when Sally Spencer had finally taken the bodies away and Danny Sterling, Monroe County homicide detective, had finished giving Thorn and Sarah and Sugarman a lecture on their irresponsibility and their luck and the incredible amount of shit still stuck to their shoes. The three of them stood on the dock beside Thorn’s skiff.
Sugarman said, “You’re a hell of a shot, counselor, especially in all that bug spray. Though I think there’s going to be some questions about those last few ro
unds. One extra they usually give you. Four more, that’s pushing it.”
Sarah nodded, miles from the dock, from that stifling summer evening.
“And you, Thorn,” Sugarman said, “you ever going to tell me how you wound up at that condo?”
“Probably not,” he said. “No.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll dream up something entertaining for the sheriff.” Sugarman touched the shiny bill of his hat, nodding at Sarah. “I’d like to stay longer, have a nice chat, but I got to get over to the funeral home,” he said. “I got an autopsy I want to see.”
30
“WHERE TO?” Thorn asked her when they’d gotten back into the skiff.
“Where do you think?”
He tried for a moment to see behind her blue eyes. But she’d taken them out of action. Dazed or determined, it hardly mattered at this point.
Thorn took the skiff back down the coast, skimming past Kate’s, down past Garden Cove, into Crawfish Creek, and into Largo Sound. Past the mangrove canal where that morning they had eluded the marine patrol. Through Adams Cut and over to the bay and then back up the coastline, north through Blackwater Sound. Sarah sitting up front, facing into the wind, Thorn standing out from behind the windscreen, also taking it full in the face, steering with his left hand.
He called out to her, “This what you had in mind?” She nodded, without turning to look at him, that it was.
He slowed as they came through the narrow inlet into Lake Surprise.
“Out there,” Sarah said, and pointed to a spot a hundred yards from the highway. She snapped the cylinder back in place on the Colt. Held it in her lap.
Thorn made for her spot.
“Anchor?” he asked her when they’d reached the place.
She shook her head no.
Thorn looked down into the clear water, six, maybe seven feet. The turtle grass bending with the incoming tide. When he looked up again, she had moved forward and was sitting on the bait wells, facing him. The revolver in both hands still in her lap.
Under Cover of Daylight Page 26