Fool Me Twice jl-6

by Paul Levine

  “ So I was just a fall guy to get the insurance and the stupid treasure claims?”

  “ Not so stupid,” Blinky said. “Not when you’re talking about all of her.”

  “ Her? That’s the third time you’ve talked about getting all of her. The mine?”

  “ No, the Silver Queen.”

  “ That’s what I said, the mine.”

  Blinky was puzzled. Then he figured it out. “No, not that silver queen. This one.” He grabbed one of the light poles and swung it around, tossing the beam to a position directly behind him. It illuminated a lady of silver nearly twenty feet high. She looked a little like the Statue of Liberty, except this lady sat on a throne in a half chariot, half ship.

  “ Ain’t she something?” Blinky asked. “I been studying up on her. I read all of Cimarron’s newspaper clippings from a hundred years ago.” Blinky lowered his voice into a Miami con man’s imitation of a Lowell Thomas newsreel. “‘The queen reclines with the voluptuous grace of a Cleopatra in her Egyptian barge.’

  I walked over for a closer look. The chariot sat on a pedestal trimmed with a drapery of silver, gold, and what looked like ebony. Leading to the throne were steps inlaid with silver dollars. On the risers, the words “Silver Queen” were raised in letters of solid silver. The background was a mass of brilliant colored minerals, and the borders were white crystals. The words “Aspen, Colorado” appeared on a lower panel of the pedestal. The letters were formed from broken pieces of silver on a background that looked like pure white sugar. I moved closer for a better look.

  “ Diamond dust,” Blinky said.

  Six pillars of burnished silver and crystals inlaid with mosaics of different ores rose from the pedestal and supported the throne. The wheels of the chariot were four feet high and made of solid silver. A canopy of minerals and crystals covered the queen’s head. Her hair was made of glass, and the drapery across her Ruben-esque bosom was adorned with bright minerals I couldn’t identify. In her hand, she held a silver scepter that must have been ten feet long. It was topped with a silver dollar a foot across and a five-pointed silver star. Two Greek gods ran alongside the chariot carrying cornucopias filled with gold and silver coins.

  “ Her head and body are carved from the biggest, purest silver nugget ever mined,” Blinky said, “more than a ton, and it came from this mountain.” There was a note of pride in his voice, as if he had made the damn thing. “What do you think of her, Jake?”

  “ Let me try to find the word. How about tacky? Gauche? Overblown? Laughable? Kitschy, if there is such a word.”

  “ Yeah, well I know it ain’t too subtle. Cimarron called it one of the last purely Victorian pieces, but who gives a shit if it ain’t a da Vinci? See, Cimarron figured it out. It’s got historical value plus the value of the minerals and the fact there’s never been anything like it, before or since. After the World’s Fair, the lady had been sitting there at the museum over in Pueblo, but they were going to tear down the place. The guys who owned the mines and contributed the minerals were mighty pissed and wanted her back, but the museum guys were going to send her to the Smithsonian or maybe New York, so the mining guys just stole the damn thing. Brought her here on a freight car and lowered her back into the ground from whence she came. The mine was petered out by then, and the bottom tunnel flooded. They wanted to put the lady on display for the local folks, but they had lost their minerals claims to the banks, and they had more to worry about than museums and such. Luckily for the lady, she sat up here where you see her, good as new, or she will be once we polish her up. We got the patents and the mineral rights to this mine, and the big queen is made of minerals found herein.”

  “ What are you saying, that you own this thing?”

  “ Free and clear, and I got the paperwork to prove it.” In a singsong voice, Blinky intoned, “Know all men by these presents that Rocky Mountain Treasures Inc. has located and claimed by right of discovery and location, in compliance with the Mining Acts of Congress approved May 10, 1872, and all subsequent acts, and with local customs, laws and regulations, seventeen hundred and fifty linear feet and horizontal measurement on the Silver Queen, No. 3, with all its dips, angles and variations as allowed by law, and all veins, lodes, ledges or deposits, and surface ground within the lines of said claim, blah, blah, blah. What I’m saying, Jake, is we got one hundred percent legal title to a fat lady worth millions.”

  “ We?” I said. “As in you and your sister.”

  “ No, we, as in you and me. You got ten percent of the company, remember.”

  “ What about Jo Jo?”

  “ You tell me, Counselor. She killed Cimarron. She hit him with the plank, then put a nail through his big fat, head. I oughta know. I handed her the nail gun, but I never touched the damn barrel.”

  “ You’re going to give up your sister?”

  “ After today, they gotta go after somebody new, so I say throw her to the fucking wolves.”

  “ Luis! Have you gone mad?” Jo Jo’s face was a mask of anger, but anger without fear.

  “ Nah, I’m just doing what’s got to be done.”

  “ Blinky, what about Kyle Hornback?” I asked. “You killed him.”

  “ No fucking way. I’m sitting with that chi chi cabron on your sofa, which I’d be embarrassed to give to the Salvation Army, and my little sister gives him a drink with enough barbs to knock out a cow. In about two minutes, he’s slobbering on my shoulder, and Josie goes up to your bedroom and brings down a tie your grandmother must have bought you.”

  “ Luis!?Collate la boca! ” Jo Jo’s forehead was tightened into vertical lines, and a vein throbbed in her neck. “Do you think I’m going to let you get away with this?”

  He turned toward his sister. “C’mon, it’s true. You strangled the hijo de puta with Jake’s tie. Hey, Jake, I thought that tie looked bad on you. You should have seen it on Hornback with his tongue sticking out.”

  “ I did.”

  “ Yeah, that’s right, I forgot.”

  “ Who strung him up on the fan?”

  “ That took both of us, and it wasn’t easy ‘cause Kyle didn’t help any.”

  “ Is that right, Jo Jo? Is that the way it happened?”

  But she wasn’t talking.

  “ The failure to deny the accusation is admissible,” I said. “What’s the fancy name Judge Witherspoon gave it, an adoptive admission?”

  “ Go to hell, both of you,” said my former love.

  “ I’m home free, and she takes the fall,” Blinky said. “My holier-than-thou sister who always put me down. Well, let me tell you something. I never killed a man. I’m just a thief, but she is heartless and bloodless and soulless. I was there, man, and I tell you I nearly puked on your floor when she did Hornback. She never blinked an eye. He could have been a cockroach. With Cimarron, same thing. Mostly, she was pissed you didn’t do the job. There’s a name for what she is. A psycho or something.”

  “ A sociopath,” I said. “And as for you, Blinky, you’re clearly an accessory to Hornback’s murder and probably a conspirator to Cimarron’s. Or maybe it’s the other way around, I could never tell the difference.”

  “ So what, they got nothing on me.”

  “ Maybe they can piece it together. For starters, everything you’ve said to me is admissible against you.”

  “ Are you loco! You can’t testify against me. You’re my lawyer. I got the whatchamacallit, the privilege, and besides, I want you to represent me, not rat on me. You’re the best, Jake, and more important, you’re mi amigo. For ten percent of the silver lady, plus a bonus, you can take care of it. Get me immunity up here if there’s any risk they’d try to indict. I’ll tell ‘em what I saw. I’ll take a polygraph.”

  “ No dice. I’m through with both of you.”

  Blinky’s expression changed. “Then what am I going to do with you?”

  He raised the shovel as if to take a swipe at me.

  I flexed my knees and let my arms dangle loosely at my
sides. “Go ahead and try, Blinky. I’ll ram it up your ass.”

  While he was thinking about it, Jo Jo Baroso took two steps to one side, reached inside her coat, and came out with a handgun. She pointed it at Blinky, then at me, then somewhere between the two us.

  “ All right, both of you,” she said, waving the gun in the air. “Jake, move away from the ledge. Luis, move next to Jake.”

  It was a Smith amp; Wesson Bodyguard. 38, the airweight model with the two-inch blue steel barrel. At less than fifteen ounces, just dandy for a lady’s purse.

  “ I’ll bet Abe Socolow gave you that thing the day you got your badge and promised to uphold the Constitution,” I said.

  “ Shut up, Jake, and do what I say.”

  “ Most prosecutors can’t shoot a lick.”

  “ Try me.”

  “ Where you going to go, Jo Jo? After today, there’s nowhere to run.”

  “ That’s enough, Jake. Just move.”

  “ You going to shoot us?” I persisted. “Your brother and the man who loved you.”

  “ If you loved me, you would never have left me. As for Luis, his loyalty has just been demonstrated. This is the last time I’m asking. I want both of you back by the statue.”

  Blinky started walking in that direction. I took one step, leapt to the right and grabbed the aluminum pole with the spotlight, crashing it to the ground. The spot broke, and we were in the shadow of the Silver Queen, a second spotlight still shining fifteen yards away. A gunshot ricocheted off the rocks above my head. Not even close. I was on the hard, cold floor of the cavern.

  Another shot, again wildly above me. I heard Blinky scrambling on all fours and saw him duck behind an ore cart.

  “ C’mon out, you two!” she yelled.

  I kept down, and Blinky got up, put a shoulder to the cart, and using it as a shield, began pushing it toward his sister. It gave me a chance.

  I lunged toward the wooden crate and grabbed three sticks of dynamite and a handful of foot-long wooden matches. I turned in time to see Jo Jo deftly step to one side and Blinky crash the ore cart into a rocky wall. The impact sent his head into the side of the cart, and he reeled backward, collapsing on the floor. Jo Jo turned the gun on him, then swung it toward me.

  Two more steps and I dived for the other aluminum pole, taking it down with me, crashing the spotlight.

  Total, blinding darkness broken by a flash of orange, a gunshot missing me but pinging off the Silver Queen.

  “ That’s no way to treat a lady,” I said. In the darkness, I picked up a rock and tossed it one direction while I crawled in another. Another stray gunshot just after the rock hit the far wall.

  I crept behind the Silver Queen, scraping my hands and knees, but keeping silent. I heard Jo Jo’s “shit” as she bumped into something. Then a flashlight popped on. The flashlight was in her left hand, the gun in her right. I could see her, but she couldn’t see me. I grabbed a rock and winged it at her, but it missed, causing her to spin and shoot behind her. How many gunshots had there been? Four or five? I hadn’t been counting. The. 38 only holds five bullets. But was she carrying spare ammo?

  “ Josie, let’s talk this over.” Blinky now, somewhere in the darkness. “C’mon, I never would have flipped on you. Let’s you and me work it out.”

  I heard her spin the cylinder on the. 38 and looked up in time to see her slipping bullets in. The flashlight beam struck Blinky squarely in the face.

  A gunshot and a scream.

  “ You shot me! Jesus Cristo, Jake, she shot me in the fucking leg! I’m bleeding. She broke the bone. Jake!”

  I kept quiet. I did not want to get shot in the leg or anywhere else.

  I stayed huddled behind the right rear wheel of the Silver Queen’s chariot. Another gunshot, and the sound of glass shattering. Above me, the lady’s hair had fractured into a thousand shards and cascaded over me. I stayed put, struck a match to the rock floor and lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite. I crouched there, letting the fuse fizzle and crackle, keeping the flame between my cupped hands so it would not glow in the darkness, trying to figure what to do next.

  I tried to calculate how long the fuse took to burn. I counted off the seconds, measured the inches, then realized it was about ten seconds from blast off. Extending my arm, I tossed a hook shot in the general direction of the entrance to the cavern. As I did, a flood of thoughts engulfed me. I didn’t know the strength of one stick of dynamite. Probably more pow than a string of Chinese firecrackers, but not enough to bring down the roof. Right? Didn’t Blinky talk about a circle of sticks just to knock a hole in rock wall? As my arm was following through on a pretty healthy toss, I thought of the old Road Runner cartoons. Wasn’t Wile E. Coyote always tossing dynamite and having it tossed right back?

  I intended it as a diversion. A little boom, and I would dash.. .

  “ Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  All these years I’ve known Jo Jo Baroso and never had she been so scatological. Of course, then, I’d never thrown a stick of dynamite at her before.

  The floppity-flop of her rubber boots across rock. A stomping sound.

  “ You’re crazy, Jake!” Her voice, just this side of hysterical. “You’ll kill us all. These timbers aren’t stable.”

  At least she hadn’t thrown it back at me.

  From somewhere in the darkness, I heard the whimpering of my client who liked the privilege that kept me from testifying against him, but refused to adhere to any laws himself.

  “ Blinky, how about it?” I shouted out. “Is it safe?”

  “ Blow her up, Jake. Send her straight to hell.”

  I peered out from behind the chariot’s wheel and saw the flashlight beam play across the floor until it found Blinky, curled up alongside an ore cart. “Jake, she’s going to shoot me again. No, Josie, no!”

  “ I’ll take care of you later,” Jo Jo said, then turned the beam toward the Silver Queen. It flicked off, and I knew she was walking this way. I didn’t hesitate. I struck a match, lit the fuse, stepped into the open, and tossed it underhanded along the rocky floor. It bounced two or three times, the fuse burning green in the darkness.

  I heard Jo Jo mutter the same monosyllable. I heard the boots slapping the rock. I watched the lit fuse, tried to memorize the spot in the darkness as she approached it. The glowing fuse disappeared under a stomping boot and I charged the spot. I was going to hit her head on, legs churning, and wrap her up, a picture-perfect tackle. I was going to drive her to the floor and do something I’ve never done before: I was going to hit a woman.

  She must have heard my leather soles smacking the floor. Or my labored breathing. Or her instincts were just too sharp.

  I saw the flash from the muzzle before I felt the impact.

  The bullet caught me in the right shoulder. It was a clean through-and-through that didn’t strike a bone, a major blood vessel, or a steel pin that acts up when it rains. I felt a burning, the trickle of warm blood, and then a sharp pain as if an ice pick had been jammed into me and was still there.

  I was still on my feet, but wondering why.

  Shouldn’t I be on the ground or something?

  The flashlight flicked on, bursting through the darkness, illuminating a craggy formation of blue limestone and dolomite above me. I turned, tucked my head, went into a crouch and rolled onto my good shoulder, scrambling back behind the chariot.

  Another gunshot, and again the Silver Lady took one for me. Or maybe it ricocheted off Plutus, one of the little diapered gods at her side. I felt around in the darkness for the last stick of dynamite. Where the hell was it? I found the big silver wheel of the chariot, ran my hand along the ground, and there it was. I drew a match from my pocket, struck it, and nothing happened. My pants, still soggy from my bodysurfing in the tunnel, had moistened the tip. I found another match. Soaking wet. Another one, same thing.

  I breathed on the first match, trying to dry the phosphorous, wiped it in the dust, struck it again. Nothing, and now the tip started t
o crumble.

  I heard Jo Jo’s footsteps getting closer.

  One last time, and it caught. I let the flame grow a second, then lit the fuse, waited a second and threw the dynamite as far as I could. I wanted to sail it over Jo Jo’s head to get her turned around. When she headed to stomp out the fuse, I’d rush her again, but this time, I’d zigzag. waited to hear the dynamite hit the ground, but instead of the smack against hard rock, I heard a soft thump.

  Then I heard Blinky’s yell. “Jake, ay, mierda! Jake, maldito sea , it’s on the timber over the ledge. I can see the fuse burning.”

  Then I heard Jo Jo. Her vocabulary hadn’t improved. I watched the flashlight beam playing across the rocks above the ledge. Finally it stopped at the juncture of a vertical and horizontal timber. Wedged between them was a stick of dynamite with a glowing fuse.

  The timber was at least twelve feet off the ground. In my younger days, I could dunk a basketball with a running start, but the basket’s only ten feet. Twelve feet was out of the question.

  “ Jake, come here!” Jo Jo shouted at me. She was directly in front of the Silver Queen, maybe fifteen feet from the pedestal.

  “ Why, you want a clean shot at me?”

  “ No, you’ve got to put out the dynamite. Now!”

  “ Throw your gun over here, and I’ll do it,” I said, though I didn’t have the slightest idea how.

  “ Chingate!”

  Well, at least she had expanded her stock of words. “The gun. Throw it out.”

  “ First, the dynamite.”

  “ No, first the gun.”

  “ Would you two stop arguing and do something?” Blinky had picked up some rocks from where he was lying and was tossing them at the dynamite. I couldn’t see where they landed, but I didn’t think he was going to win a teddy bear at the county fair.