Potshot

by Robert B. Parker

  "We did," I said.

  I put an omelet on a plate with some biscuits. Chollo took it to Bobby Horse.

  "You need me to feed you?" Cholio said.

  Bobby Horse shook his head.

  "So if we was going to ambush the fuckers anyway," Bernard said, "how come we didn't do it first, climb up there and shoot them down right in the canyon?"

  "They hadn't come for us then," I said.

  "That's why I got fucking shot," Bernard said.

  I nodded. I was at the stove again, making another omelet. You have to make omelets in small batches or they don't work. And the pan needs to be cured, and the heat needs to be right. You don't just break a bunch of eggs.

  "I don't get it," Bernard said.

  "You get used to it," Vinnie said.

  "But we did the same fucking thing," Bernard said. "And I got fucking shot doing it, and so did Bobby Horse."

  The current omelet had firmed up just enough. I folded it over, shook it around in the pan a minute, and slid it onto a plate. I gave it to Bernard.

  "Are you going to explain it?" Bernard said to me.

  "Just eggs and some pan-fried onions," I said.

  "I'm not talking about the fucking omelet, for crissake," Bernard said. "Vinnie, you know what I'm talking about."

  Vinnie shrugged.

  "You get it?" Bernard said to Vinnie.

  "Yeah."

  "And?"

  "You get used to it," Vinnie said.

  "Well it's fucking crazy," Bernard said.

  Hawk put his coffee cup down and rested his forearms on the table.

  "No," he said. "It's not crazy."

  Bernard looked a little scared. Most people were afraid of Hawk, but there was heat in Hawk's voice that Bernard had never heard before. A lot of people hadn't.

  "It's what makes him different than you," Hawk said, "or me or Vinnie, or Chollo or Bobby Horse."

  "What about Tedy?" Bernard said.

  Bernard had the attention span of a hummingbird.

  "Don't know about Tedy," Hawk said. "Might be more like Spenser."

  "Except for the queer part," Sapp said.

  "'Cept that," Hawk said. "The rest of us, we see something that needs to be done, we do it. We don't much care how we do it. Spenser thinks that how you do it is as important as what you do."

  I realized what had startled Bernard. There was no mockery in Hawk's voice. None of his usual up-alley, self-amused, ghetto bebop. Bernard stared at him. They all did, except me. I was working on a new omelet.

  "Why?" Bernard said.

  Hawk grinned suddenly.

  "So he be different than us."

  I don't think Bernard got it. But everyone else seemed to, and Bernard, Percocet-addled though he was, sensed it and shut up. The rest of breakfast conversation was devoted to women we had known.

  After breakfast I sat on the front porch with Hawk and drank more coffee.

  "I don't need to sleep at night, anyway," I said.

  Chollo came out helping Bobby Horse. He got him arranged in the back seat of the car, with one leg out straight, and came back up the steps.

  "You got everything?" I said.

  "Guns are in the trunk, jefe."

  "What about Bobby Horse?" I said.

  "Mr. del Rio has a friend at UCLA Medical Center," Chollo said.

  "I didn't know del Rio had friends."

  "When he needs them," Chollo said. "Like you."

  I put out my right hand, clenched in a fist. Chollo tapped his fist lightly on top of it, nodded at Hawk and walked to the car. Bobby Horse never glanced back as they drove away.

  "We through here?" Hawk said.

  "Everybody but me," I said.

  Vinnie came out with Tedy Sapp. Bernard J. Fortunato hobbled along with them, Tedy had an arm around him holding him up. Bernard had one arm around Sapp's shoulder.

  "We're going to Vegas," Bernard said. "I'm going to drink six Mai Tais and fuck six women the first day."

  "Better do it the other way around," I said.

  "I'll take the rental," Sapp said. "Drop Bernard off. Turn it in at the airport. Fly home from Vegas."

  "My best to the opthalmologist," I said.

  Sapp grinned.

  "And to the shrink," Sapp said.

  The three of them headed for the car and got Bernard in the back. Sapp got in the driver's side. Vinnie went around to the passenger side. He stopped before he got in and looked over the roof of the car.

  "I left my guns all packed," Vinnie said. "Drive them home for me."

  "You're going to Vegas?" I said.

  "One drive between Boston and here is enough," Vinnie said. "Gonna help Bernard with the Mai Tais and the broads, then I'll fly home."

  "Viva Las Vegas," I said.

  "You gonna pay me?"

  "When I get back to Boston."

  Vinnie nodded.

  "I packed my guns in the back of the Explorer," he said. "I'll pick them up in Boston."

  "Spenser's long haul," I said. "No package too illegal."

  Vinnie nodded at Hawk and at me, and slid into the car, and the car slid into gear and went down the road.

  "You still worrying 'bout the guy got killed?"

  "Steve Buckman."

  "Going to stick around until you sort that out?" Hawk said.

  "Yes."

  Hawk had his feet up on the railing, his hands locked behind his head and his chair tilted back. He looked out at the sage and cactus and shale and sand that stretched in front of the house up the hill.

  "Me too," he said.

  Chapter 63

  "ARE YOU OKAY?" Susan said when I called her. "I'm fine," I said. "Just wanted to listen to your voice for a little while."

  "It'll have to be a very little while. I have another patient in… three minutes."

  "Maybe he'll be late," I said.

  "He's never late. When are you coming home?"

  "Not quite yet. I got everything done but one thing."

  "Have you done your thing with the Dell yet?"

  "Yep."

  "Successful?"

  "Yep."

  "I was scared about that," Susan said.

  "Me too."

  "What's the one thing?"

  "Who killed Steve Buckman?"

  "Will it take long?"

  "It shouldn't. I'm pretty sure I know who did it, and I'm pretty sure I can't prove it."

  "But you'll try," Susan said.

  "One last time," I said.

  "Then you'll come home."

  "Yes."

  There was silence on the phone line for awhile. When Susan spoke her voice had deepened somehow and become richer.

  "And what's the second thing you'll want when you get here?" she said.

  I was quiet for awhile lying on the bed, looking up at the unaccommodating ceiling of the house where I had spent too much time already.

  "There is no second thing," I said.

  "I know… My patient is here… I love you… I have to go."

  "I love you too," I said. "I'll be home soon."

  "Is Hawk still with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Good," she said and hung up.

  Chapter 64

  I CALLED MARY Lou to make sure she'd be home. When I pulled the Explorer up in front of Mary Lou Buckman's place, Dean Walker's patrol car was parked in the driveway. "Both the usual suspects," I said to Hawk.

  We got out and started up the walk. The horses in her corral stood at the fence, staring at us silently. The front door opened before I reached it.

  "What the hell do you want?" Dean Walker said.

  I kept on toward the door.

  "We need to talk," I said. "You and me and Mary Lou."

  "What's he doing here?" Walker said, looking at Hawk.

  "He's here to listen to us talk," I said.

  I thought Walker was going to slam the door on us. I helieve he thought so too, but changed his mind and stepped aside and we went in. The yellow Lab I'd met before
rushed up and began to lap my hand. I scratched her under the chin. Mary Lou was sitting on the couch. She was wearing blue shorts this time, and a white tank top. The effect was just as good.

  "I can't be alone with you," she said. "I called Chief Walker the minute I knew you were coming."

  "Good to find a cop when you need one," I said.

  Hawk stopped inside the doorway and leaned on the wall. He looked bored and amused at the same time.

  "What do you want, Spenser?"

  I sat on the arm of the couch, at the other end from Mary Lou. Walker remained standing. The Lab came and put her head on my thigh. I patted her. I felt kind of old. I missed Pearl. I wanted to go home.

  "Here's what I think," I said. "I think that one day, Mary Lou and Steve were wandering around in the hills around here and found water. I don't know how. Mary Lou's a water resource geologist, maybe she found a spring that was suggestive. Maybe they did some covert drilling. Maybe they looked at surveys and rock formations. I don't know how you find water. But she did and one way or another she figured out that there was a whole new water source. She or Steve or both of them saw what that could mean."

  Except for the Lab who was wagging her tail, no one moved. With the heat packed in around the house, there was a kind of timelessness in the cool interior.

  "But they didn't know quite how to exploit it, so they went to J. George Taylor, the real estate specialist in the region. He must have liked it 'cause he attracted some investors. Luther Barnes, the mayor, Henry Brown, some others, and they started buying up land."

  "Say that's true," Walker said, "which it''s not. But say it was. So what? There's no crime there."

  "Not yet," I said. "But somebody, along the line, got to thinking that if they could drive the prices down, they could make a much bigger killing much quicker."

  Walker said nothing. Mary Lou was motionless on the couch, her knees up, hugging them.

  "So they took it to a guy who would know how to do things like that and had the wherewithal to do it."

  "And that would be?" Walker said.

  "Morris Tannenbaum," I said. "He likes the deal. He sends The Preacher out to organize the Dell and harass the town until people get rid of their homes at fire-sale prices."

  "And you can prove all this," Walker said.

  "Hell no," I said. "Some of it I can prove, maybe. Some of it I'll probably never know. Some of it I'm making up as I go."

  "It sounds that way."

  "Sure. It's a harebrained scheme," I said. "But Tannenbaum had his reasons. And everything was going pretty good except that Steve was shooting off his mouth."

  "And Tannenbaum killed him?" Walker said.

  I took the transcript of the FBI bug from my back pocket and unfolded it and handed it to Walker. He read it slowly, his face showing nothing. Then he handed it to Mary Lou. As she read it she began to blush. By the time she finished her face was very red.

  "That's a nasty lie," she said. "Someone has made that up."

  She looked at Walker. "Darling. I never…"

  "Morris Tannenbaum?" Walker said.

  He shook his head, like a horse with a fly in his car.

  "You fucked Morris Tannenbaum?" he said.

  "Darling, I swear…"

  Walker's chest was heaving. The lines at the corners of his mouth were deep.

  "What I don't know is whether Mary Lou killed Steve herself, or had Ratliff do it."

  Mary Lou hunched forward over her knees and put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes.

  "No," she said. "No, no, no, no, no, no."

  I felt bad for Walker. He looked like he was struggling to stand. His eyes were reddened and his nostrils seemed to have flared.

  "And I don't know if she killed Ratliff, or had you do it," I said.

  Mary Lou uncoiled from the couch and stood and pressed herself against Walker.

  "I can't stand this, Dean. Please, I can't stand this. Take me away. We'll go away."

  Walker's arms were at his side. He was trembling. I could hear his breath heaving in and out. The Lab had stopped wagging her tail and was pressing in against my leg. Leaning on the wall, Hawk looked as if he might doze off. Mary Lou pressed her face into the angle of Walker's neck and shoulder. She had her arms hard around him.

  "Please, darling, please. We'll go away. We'll start over. Please…"

  Slowly, Walker's arms left his sides. They seemed to move on their own, as if he had no knowledge of them. His arms went around her and held her as hard as she held him.

  "We'll go," he said. "We'll go."

  "Walker," I said.

  "We're going," he said.

  His voice was hoarse.

  "Walker, she killed her husband or had him killed. She killed Ratliff or had him killed. She used her husband. She used Ratliff. She used Tannenbaum. She's using you."

  "You can't stop us," Walker said.

  With his arms still around her, he turned toward the door. He was wearing a gun, but he made no move for it.

  "You will never be able to trust her," I said.

  They walked to the door. Mary Lou was still sobbing. The dog left my leg and went after her. Mary Lou put a hand down and took the dog's collar. Hawk looked at me. I shook my head. Walker, Mary Lou and the dog went out her front door and it closed behind them. I didn't move. Hawk didn't move. Outside we could hear Walker's car start up and pull out of the driveway.

  "She probably killed several people," Hawk said.

  "Or had it done," I said.

  "Same thing."

  "I know."

  "You letting her walk," Hawk said.

  "No," I said. "I'm letting him walk."

  We were quiet. The house was quiet. I could still smell the hint of her cologne in the cool interior.

  "Maybe I'm sentimental," I said.

  "Maybe," Hawk said.