So Tucker was being cautious. Cautious enough to bring somebody with him as a backup, just in case? Somebody like Lawrence Jacobs? Be just fine if it worked out that way. If it didn’t, if he brought somebody else or came alone, that was okay too. I was taking my own company along, my own little backup in case of trouble: the .22 Sentinel.
“All right,” I said. “If that’s the way it has to be.”
The smile, the shrug.
“You’ll be hearing from me, Rix.”
“Real soon, I hope,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Real soon.”
MIDAFTERNOON
The side road and Herman’s Fruit Stand were easy enough to find. I turned onto the narrow blacktop, past the boarded-up shanty, and drove in among the orchards—peach trees on my left, walnut trees on my right, both kinds just starting to show their spring buds. There had been plenty of winter rain up here; the ground under the trees was soggy in places. I passed one group of farm buildings tucked back among the peach trees, saw no one there or in the orchards or on the road.
The Toyota’s odometer had clicked off nine-tenths of a mile when the hard left bend appeared ahead, just beyond where the orchards ended on both sides. The unpaved track that extended off the paved one was narrow, rutted, and muddy; it ran in a series of little dips across a brushy expanse of sand and broken rock and then vanished among scattered scrub oak. Beyond and through those trees I had glimpses of the Feather River: brownish sparkles where the afternoon sun struck the water.
I eased off onto the track. Its condition wasn’t as bad as it had looked from a distance; I had no problem getting across the open ground and in among the scrub oak. The track dipped sharply and at an angle then, into another cleared area of sand and gravel some ten feet above the level of the river. You could tell that it was used for a lover’s lane as well as a parking lot; there were used condoms and a pair of girl’s underpants among the beer cans and other litter. You could also tell that in the summer, when the Feather shrank in size, it would be half again as large as it was now. At the moment it was deserted. And I saw no sign of a person or a car anywhere else in the vicinity.
I turned the Toyota around to face the track, braked in the shadow of a scrub oak, and shut off the engine. From this spot you couldn’t see either the country road or the orchards. I looked at my watch: five past three. When the hands showed ten past I yielded to impulse and got out of the car; I was edgy and sitting there was causing crimps in my neck and shoulders.
A brisk wind blew here, almost cold and strong enough to make sighing, rattling sounds among the oak branches. Clouds had begun to pile up in the west; some of them moved across the face of the sun, so that the daylight was successively bright and a dull metallic gray. I walked over to where the ground sloped muddily to the water. The river was maybe seventy-five yards wide at this point, a hundred yards wide where it bellied inland farther south. Willows grew down that way, past a fan of driftwood that spread upward against a hump in the bank. Somebody—kids, probably—had fashioned a water swing out of two pieces of rope and a truck tire and hung it from one of the willow branches: swimming hole in the summer. Now the water was heavy with silt, swollen and swift-moving from the winter rains. More driftwood and other flotsam bobbed along on the surface, running down toward where the Feather joined the wider and deeper Sacramento River.
For a time I stood alternately watching the water and the place where the track bled into the parking ground. Stillness, except for the movement of the river and the tree branches. Silence, except for the soughing of the wind. It wasn’t long before the cold prodded me away, back to the car—the cold and the mounting tension.
3:20.
Come on, Tucker, I thought.
I got back into the Toyota, sat with my hand kneading the butt of the .22 in my jacket pocket. The track stayed empty, this side of the river stayed deserted. On the other side, half a dozen crows came from somewhere and began wheeling above another walnut orchard over there, creating a shrill racket that penetrated the closed car and scratched at my nerves.
3:25.
3:30.
Maybe he’s not coming, I thought—and that was when he finally showed up.
I saw his car before I heard it, because of the wind and the crows. Newish Chrysler, its brown and chrome surfaces dulled by a layering of dirt and mud. The windshield glass was streaked, too, but I could see through well enough to tell that the driver was the only apparent occupant. Somebody hunkered down in back? Not likely. Unless he was the paranoid type, Tucker wouldn’t have any cause for that much caution.
He parked twenty yards from the Toyota and a little to one side. But he didn’t get out right away: waiting for me to show myself first. I obliged him, straightening up behind the open door. When he followed suit I stepped around and shut the door and walked toward him, slowly. He edged forward to meet me. There was a kind of ritualism to it all, like a couple of street dogs working each other in an alley.
We stopped with a few feet separating us, about halfway between the two cars. He was four or five inches above six feet and big all over. “Arms like cement blocks,” Barnwell had said. Yeah. Popeye forearms, and biceps that bulged and rippled and stretched taut the sleeves of his blue T-shirt. The T-shirt and a pair of Levi’s and heavy workman’s boots were all he wore: Mr. Macho, Mr. Bad Ass. Maybe so, but his head under its covering of black slicked-back hair was undersized and his eyes, like chips of brown glass, betrayed its relative emptiness. Thinking would never be a hobby with him. Whenever he did have a thought, if he ever had one, it would soon curl up and die a solitary death, like a babe lost in a wasteland.
I said, “Frank Tucker?”
“Yeah. You Canino?”
“That’s right.”
“I hear you got a job for me.”
“Right. An easy one.”
“Kind I like best. What you want me to do?”
“Answer a question.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me where I can find Lawrence Jacobs.”
“Huh?”
I took the .22 out and pointed it at his sternum. “Pal of yours, the one who calls himself Lawrence Jacobs. Where can I find him?”
He stared at the gun for five seconds, not moving. It took him that long to shift gears, to come to terms with the sudden twist in the situation. Then he got mad. His muscles rippled, his hands closed into fists, his eyes got mean and his mouth got ugly, and he said, predictably, “What the fuck’s the idea?”
“Lawrence Jacobs. He’s the idea.”
“You’re talkin shit.”
“Lawrence Jacobs,” I said again. “He lived with you on K Street in Sacramento last November. Slender, brown hair, in his thirties. Called himself Lawrence Jacobs.”
“Brit? What you want with him?”
Brit. Another name I didn’t recognize. “Is that his first or his last name?”
“Huh?”
“Tell me his full name.”
“Blow it out your ass, cowboy.”
“Wrong answer. His full name and where I can find him—those are the right answers.”
“Blow it out your ass.”
“Tell me what I want to know or I’ll put a bullet in your knee. You’ve busted some kneecaps in your time, right? You know how much it hurts.”
“You’re crazy,” he said.
“Sure I am. Now make up your mind. Talk to me or spend the rest of your life on crutches.”
But I wasn’t scaring him; he was either too tough or too much of a Cro-Magnon to be scared. The only emotion in him was rage. His face was blood-dark and pinched up with it, the eyes hot and bright. “You ain’t gonna shoot me,” he said. “Not with that little popgun.”
I thumbed the .22’s hammer back. “Try me.”
And he did, by God. The stupid son of a bitch said, “I’ll make you eat that fuckin gun,” and charged me.
I would have shot him, I had every intention of putting a bullet in his leg, if not his kneecap, but I
made the mistake of first taking a step backward and to one side to give myself more room. When I did that my foot slipped on the loose mix of sand and broken rock; my arm bumped out to the side and when I yanked it back and squeezed off at him, the round didn’t even come close. I had no time for a second shot. He was on me by then, bellowing something, swatting at my right arm, launching a blow with his other fist. That one scraped the side of my head but his other hand hammered into my wrist, broke my grip on the .22 and sent it skittering free. I reeled away from him, still trying to regain my balance. But he was fast on his feet and he caught up with me, swung again and hit me high on the left shoulder when I pulled my head back. The blow knocked me sprawling on hands and knees.
When I came up shaking my head he was right there, trying to stomp me with his goddamn boots. I lunged into him while he had one foot off the ground, staggered him away from me far enough so that I could get back on my feet. Through a haze of sweat I saw him grinning as he came back toward me, not in a rush but in slow gliding movements. He was in no hurry now. This was his kind of fight, this was what he was good at and what he liked to do. “I’m gonna tear your fuckin head off, old man,” he said and he meant it. He would kill me if I let him get enough of an advantage.
I took a quick look around for the gun; didn’t see it and forgot about it. Tucker was still advancing on me, almost within arm’s reach now. I backed off a couple of steps, to gain more room to maneuver, and that made him laugh; he thought I was afraid of him, starting to back down. So I retreated another step and put up a hand, as if to ward him off. He laughed again and then charged me as he had before.
It was just what I wanted him to do. Instead of backing off again I moved in on him, crouching, ducking under the first of his swings, and threw my shoulder into his upper body. Good solid contact, part of it on his chest and part of it on his jawline: He staggered backward four or five steps, to the edge of the sloping river bank. Before he could check his momentum his feet went out from under him and he fell belly-flat, went sliding feet first down the short muddy incline—almost into the river before he could drag himself to a stop.
He came up onto his knees, spitting mud and obscenities. But by then I was on my way to the fan of driftwood along the bank farther down. Tucker scrambled up through the mud, still bellowing; reached firm ground just as my hand closed around a three-foot chunk of tree branch with its bark peeling off. I yanked the wood free of the tangle, came around with it.
Tucker shook himself like a bear, spraying drops of water and flecks of mud, and rushed me again.
I stepped toward him, drawing the branch back over my right shoulder, sliding my hands up on the bottom end like a baseball player choking up on his bat. He thought I was going to swing it like a bat too, and threw his left arm up to protect his head, groping toward me with his right. That opened him up wide from chin to sternum. Instead of swinging the wood I met his charge with a lunge of my own and jabbed the short end hard against his collarbone, felt it glance upward and take him in the throat. I meant the blow to stop him and it did—did some damage to his windpipe and started him gagging—but it didn’t hurt him enough to end it. One of his flailing hands clawed at the shoulder of my jacket, found purchase and hung on and swung me around off balance. If he’d let go, momentum would have sent me spinning off my feet, probably caused me to lose the branch when I went down. But he didn’t let go. He hauled me in against him, still gagging, trying to hurt me the way I had hurt him. He swiped at my head with his free hand and hit me a solid lick over the left eye, cut me with a ring he had on one finger. The blow rocked me backward, but because he still had hold of my coat it didn’t put me down or off stride. And that worked in my favor: It gave me just enough space and just enough leverage to use the branch on him again.
My first jab went in under his breastbone, stiffened him and knocked out what air he had left in his lungs. The second jab made him release my coat, staggered him. I got the club up over my head then and whacked it straight down the side of his head, almost tearing off an ear, and hard against the joining of his neck and shoulder. He grunted like a pig in a wallow. His knees buckled and he went down on them, hands scrabbling at the air, drool and blood coming out of one corner of his mouth. I pulled the wood back and this time I did swing it like a baseball bat: home run swing, all the power I had left in my arms and upper body. Too much power: The impact of the branch with the side of his head created a pulpy cracking sound and the wood splintered in my hands. Tucker went over on his back and skidded down the muddy bank again—headfirst, like an upended tortoise down a greased slide.
When he splashed into the brown water his head and shoulders went under and stayed there. No way it could be a ploy to draw me down to him so he could get his hands on me again; I had hit him too hard for that. I half slid down to where he lay, took hold of his belt, and dragged him out before he drowned or the current sucked him free of the bank and carried him off.
His mouth was open and there was silt-heavy water inside it, water in his throat that was choking him. I flipped him over onto his stomach, sank to the mud beside him, and did some CPR work until the last of the water dribbled out of his mouth. By then his breath was coming in a faint rasping gurgle. I put my fingers against the artery in his neck, felt his pulsebeat. Irregular but strong enough. I rolled him onto his side, pried one of his eyelids back. The eye had rolled up in its socket and the white had a glazed cast. Concussion. And maybe I had scrambled what few brain cells he had, too. The side of his head where I’d clouted him was pulpy and bright with blood, most of it from what was left of his ear.
Looking down at the ruin of him, I felt nothing except frustration. He was out and out good; it would be a long while before he was able to talk. If he could talk at all after what I’d done to his windpipe. Would I have felt anything else—remorse, regret—if I’d killed him? Probably not. Funny, but I had gone through the whole fight, start to finish, without fear or anger or emotion of any sort. And so far, none of the usual physical aftereffects of this kind of hand-to-hand combat had set in.
Wetness on my face, dripping down into my left eye: blood from the cut Tucker had opened on my forehead. I wiped it away, got up on my feet and climbed the bank, humped over and using my hands monkey-fashion to maintain my footing. At the top I paused for a few seconds to look around, to listen. Emptiness and silence. The crows were apparently the only ones who had heard the shot and the sounds of the fight, and they were long gone.
It took me the better part of five minutes to locate the .22. When Tucker banged it out of my hand it had skidded over against one of the scrub oaks and was partially hidden by the lower branches. I checked the inside of the barrel, the cylinder, the action; it hadn’t been mud-blocked or damaged. I started to put it into my jacket pocket, but the jacket was torn and caked with mud. So I took it to the Toyota, set it on the seat inside. Any man who walks around with a loaded revolver tucked into the waistband of his pants, the way you see them do it on TV, is a damned fool.
There was nothing in the Toyota that I could use to tie Tucker up. The keys were still in the Chrysler’s ignition; I took them out, found one that would open the trunk. Plenty of stuff in there, most of it tools of the professional slugger’s trade: a couple of lengths of galvanized pipe, an axe handle, some heavy chain, a coil of strong hemp rope. I took the rope down to the river’s edge, looped it around Tucker’s hands, tied his feet, tied the four appendages together. Then I slithered him up the bank and left him lying on his belly at the top, making little liquidy purling sounds in his throat.
Among the other items in the Chrysler’s trunk was a bunch of rags. I used a couple of them to clean mud off my hands. The hound’s-tooth jacket was a ruin; so were the rest of my new clothes and my new pair of shoes. But I hadn’t thrown away the outfit I’d taken from the Carder A-frame; it was bundled up in the Toyota’s trunk. I got it out, changed, threw the muddy stuff inside. Then I went to Tucker again, pried his wallet out of his Levi’s. A
hundred and nine dollars in cash, a driver’s license—that was all. Nothing to tell me where he was living in this area. The address on the license was an unfamiliar street in West Sacramento. Old address, the one he’d had in 1987 when the license was issued.
Back to the Chrysler. The glove compartment was full of junk; I rummaged around in it until I came up with a folded piece of pink paper. It was what I was looking for—a receipt from a Yuba City realty outfit, dated twelve days ago and made out to Frank M. Tucker for payment of three months of a one-year lease on property located at 1411 Freestone Street, Yuba City. The total of the payment was $2250. Nice piece of change for somebody in Tucker’s line of work, somebody who had been living in a low-income apartment building in Vacaville two weeks ago, to be shelling out in a lump sum. The year’s lease was interesting, too, considering Tucker’s penchant for moving around from place to place. Mixed up in something with Elmer Rix, I thought—something a lot more lucrative, and a hell of a lot more illegal, than buying and selling junk.
Nothing else in the glove box told me anything. Nor did any of the car’s other contents. On the dash was a Genie garage door opener, I looked at it for a couple of seconds and then put it into my pants pocket. In a pouch on the driver’s door I found a Yuba City-Marysville street map, put that into my pocket as well.
The trunk yielded one more item I could use—a car blanket, new and from the looks of it, never opened. I brought it over to the Toyota, set it on the roof, opened the rear door, then went and got Tucker. He was too big, too much dead weight to carry; I took a wrestler’s grip on him, under the arms from behind his head, and dragged him to the car and muscled him in across the seat. I checked to make sure he was still breathing—he was—and then shook the blanket out and covered him with it.
Reaction was beginning to set in now, though not nearly as much as in the past. A little weakness in my legs, some shortness of breath, sweat running on my face. Or maybe the wetness was more blood; I pawed at it, looked at the fingers. A little of both.
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