He blinked a couple of times, then dropped the oldest cliché in the business on me.
“Get inna car,” he wheezed. “Da boss wants to see ya.”
Chapter 17
“Da boss wants to see me?” I parroted. “Who writes your material, for Christ’s sake?”
The big guy didn’t say anything; he just reached out for my left upper arm. I knocked his hand away with a forearm block. He sighed happily, curled into a boxing stance, and began to feed easy, testing jabs at me with his left fist. I blocked some and slipped others. Trouble was, he wasn’t really trying yet.
He was—or had been—a pro. He had the moves, the stance, the air of easy competence. He wasn’t perfect, though. He carried his chin too high and his shoulder a touch low; no wonder he had that wheezy voice.
He kept floating those lazy jabs at me; I swatted them aside and waited for the explosive right that would come sooner or later. At the same time I wished I had something to hit him with; I didn’t want to box with him. I wouldn’t jog for money with Carl Lewis, either.
The right hand finally came, blasting out through the smoke screen of jabs like a runaway bus. I slipped the punch, but I felt the wind when it went by. He was a little slow to get his arm back, so I went in close and gave him three quick shots in the ribs. Zot, zot, zot, with a little bit extra behind each one because I was tired of this crummy day, and because I thought he could beat me if the fight lasted long enough.
I bounced away quickly—he looked like he might be a hugger—and checked to see how much the body punches had hurt him.
He wasn’t hurt. He grinned at me and shuffled forward, still throwing those annoying little jabs.
Uh-oh.
I was not without resources, of course. I could work on that poorly guarded throat, try for a kick to a knee or his crotch, or I could run. All three options seemed equally attractive.
Then a man got out of the backseat of the Continental and hurried toward us. “Dave,” he called, “Dave! Cut it out, hey? What’s gotten into you?” He slapped the boxer’s shoulder cheerfully and talked to him the way you would talk to a large, rowdy dog. “Calm down, fella. This is no way to treat Mr Rafferty.”
The fighter came out of his stance and stood there looking around absently. He seemed vaguely disappointed, but peaceable enough.
The new guy was shorter than the goon and I; five-eleven perhaps, and slender, with curly black hair and crinkly blue eyes and a nice tan and six hundred shiny white teeth. He put out his hand. “Rod Cayman,” he said.
I looked at Cayman’s hand and nodded to him. “You got here just in time,” I said. “I thought I was going to have to hurt him.”
Cayman pulled his unshaken hand back and smiled again. Behind him the pug did a silent “haw-haw-haw” laugh.
“See ya,” I said, and walked away.
Cayman trotted to catch up. “Uh, one moment, please, Mr Rafferty.”
I didn’t stop. Cayman turned to face me and began to do an odd shuffle-trot, sideways-hop step to keep up. Funny thing was, he made it look almost graceful.
“I bet all the girls say you’re a wonderful dancer,” I said.
“What? Uh, pardon me, could we stop for a minute?” He showed me his pretty teeth again.
“Thirty seconds,” I said, and stopped. “After which I’m off to lunch.”
“Thanks,” Cayman said, and the smile melted into a concerned look. “I’m very sorry about Dave,” he said. “He, well, let’s face it, he forgets himself sometimes. He was a boxer, you see, and I think there was maybe some brain damage or something. I didn’t see what started him up like that just now. I was on the phone or I’d have …” He shrugged and held up his hands. “What can I say? I’m sorry.”
“Fifteen seconds,” I said.
“Please,” he said, “I’m asking, right? And look, I’m not grabbing you—”
Funny he should say that if he’d missed the beginning of my scuffle with Dave.
“—I’m not grabbing, right? I’m just saying that Judge Gortner would like to speak with you.”
“Gortner?” I said. “Presumably he’s related to the juvenile slimeball I rousted yesterday?”
Cayman winced and looked over his shoulder. He pulled his lips back in a grimace and said carefully, “Judge Gortner is Jerry Gortner’s grandfather, yes.”
“If I go see the judge, will he curb the little bastard’s violent impulses?”
Cayman winced again. “Please,” he said, “don’t talk about Jerry like that in front of Judge Gortner. It would be, ah, counterproductive. But, yes, I do think it’s possible you might find the meeting could be, um, useful.” The teeth appeared again, each one glinting hopefully.
“Think, possible, might, could be?” I said. “That must be a new record for ass-covering.” I turned around and started back up the street toward my office. “Okay, I’ll go. Two minutes.”
I went up to the office, took off my blue sneakers, put on a pair of high western boots. It was a gimmick I’d learned from Cowboy. I didn’t particularly like walking around in cowboy boots, but they could be very handy at times
I tucked my best blackjack down the left boot, found the little .25 imitation Beretta in my desk drawer, and slipped that into my right boot. It wasn’t much gun, but it would do for very close work.
I located my smallest blackjack, a palm-sized leather and lead-shot slapper, and shoved that into my right hip pocket. As an afterthought I got the ball bearing from Thorney’s house and took it too.
Then I went down to the street, got into the Continental, and we set off to meet the judge.
I wondered if he was any tougher than his rotten little grandson.
I bet myself he would be.
Chapter 18
“I think you and Judge Gortner will get along fine,” Cayman said. He showed me his teeth again and fiddled with the knee of his trousers, preserving the crease.
Cayman and I were sitting—lounging, actually—on the backseat of the Continental. The boxer, Dave, drove. He was a helluva good driver. He never seemed to use the brakes or the accelerator, but the car always flowed into the gaps, almost before the gaps opened. We were invariably in the fastest-moving lane, and we caught more than our fair share of green lights.
I wished I could drive like that. Hilda sometimes claimed my driving resembled Arnold Schwarzenegger tenderizing meat. A patent untruth, obviously, but still …
Dave slipped the Continental around a blue Dodge that had gone straight through three intersections with its right turn signal on.
“My congratulations,” I said to the back of his head. “I like to see ugly, tough guys do things smoothly and precisely. It gives our public image a nice boost.”
Dave said, “Hunh?”
I said he drove well; I didn’t say he was literate.
Rod Cayman snagged a car telephone off the console and tapped away importantly. While he waited for someone to answer, he made sure I noticed what he was doing but pretended not to notice me noticing him. There must be a high workload involved in being that phony.
“It’s Rod, Caroline,” Cayman said into the phone. “We’re on our way.” Pause, nod. “Yes, he’s with us. Bye.” He put the phone back in its clip.
I said, “What kind of Judge is Gortner, anyway?” I had begun to wonder about a judge who would send a pair like Dave and Cayman after me. “What court?”
Cayman put on his PR face and said, “Judge Gortner isn’t on the bench at the moment, actually. The honorific is used by his many associates as an indication of their respect and high regard.” He smiled smugly.
Then I got it. “What you’re trying to say, without saying it, is this: Thirty years ago, Gortner was a part-time city judge handing out traffic fines in Snake Navel, New Mexico. He just liked being called ‘Judge’ so much he’s hung on to the title ever since.”
There are more of those ersatz judges running around Texas than you’d think.
Rod Cayman sniffed and looked out
at the traffic.
Up front Dave’s shoulders bounced a couple of times.
“Don’t pout, Rod old buddy-pal,” I said. “Now I’ll say something nice. You did a good job finding me so quickly. How did you do that, pray tell?”
Cayman exhaled through his nose and said, after a pause, “We got your name from that senile old fool who claimed Jerry assaulted him.”
“If you sicced the hulk here on to Thorney, you better be tired of having all those teeth, pretty boy.”
Cayman shifted a few inches closer to the door on his side.
“Mr Thorneycroft gave me your name quite willingly, I assure you.”
Dave turned his head ten degrees and wheezed over his shoulder, “’At’s right. Besides which, I don’t thump old men, no matta who’s paying.”
After that, the conversation seemed to pale. We rode the rest of the way in silence.
We went to Gortner’s home, not an office building as I had expected. It was an older house, large, nicely kept, on a very large lot. It was near, but not quite in, the Turtle Creek area.
Dave stopped the Continental on an immaculately raked gravel drive. We all got out. Cayman led the way around the house, past several trees that might have been willows, across a large slate patio in the back of the house, in through a set of French doors and to an office close by. For the last part of the trip, we were joined by a regal blond woman in her thirties. Cayman called her Caroline and tried to be jolly. She ignored him. So far, of all the judge’s employees, I liked Caroline the best.
Dave sat down in a cane chair outside the office; the rest of us went in.
“Judge Gortner, Mr Rafferty,” Caroline said, then she left and closed the office door behind her.
“Well, well,” Gortner said, bounding out from behind his desk. “This is, indeed, a pleasure, indeed it is.” He wanted to shake hands and do all that ho, ho, ho, how-do-you-do business. We did, then he waved me into an armchair facing his desk.
Gortner had an honest-to-god, high-backed, black-leather judge’s chair behind the elegantly polished teak desk, so there was no doubt where he’d sit. Rod Cayman quietly went to a small couch off to one side, took out a notebook, and looked attentive.
Judge Gortner was a big, bluff, and hearty man in his late fifties. He vaguely resembled John Connally, the Texas governor back in the 1960s who was wounded when John Kennedy was shot. Gortner had wavy gray hair, a faint tracery of broken veins on his small nose, and an open expression on his face that said: Trust me, I’d never lie to you.
Sure he wouldn’t.
Judge Gortner leaned back in his expensive chair and frowned delicately. “I understand we have a small problem concerning my grandson Jerry. A schoolboy prank, I believe.”
“This is not a small problem. Jerry and his friends attacked the man’s house. They did a fair amount of damage to the house and they injured the man. They could have killed him.”
Cayman piped up with, “Absolutely ridiculous. A few pebbles, a broken window, and a senile octogenarian who hates young people. Furthermore, there is nothing to prove young Jerry was even—”
“Judge,” I said, “I came here to talk to the organ grinder. What say we get rid of the monkey?”
Gortner pursed his lips, then nodded. “We won’t take up any of your time, Rod. Thank you so much.”
Cayman slapped his notebook shut and left. His jaw was set tightly. Prediction: Whoever was below Cayman in the local pecking order was due for a bad afternoon.
Judge Gortner put his elbows on his desk and said, “You know, Mr Rafferty, Rod may have a point. It’s not hard to see how an elderly gentleman might, well, become overly excited in the face of, shall we say, youthful exuberance.”
“No, let’s not say ‘youthful exuberance.’ I accept that the boys were not trying to kill the old man. But it was only blind luck that they didn’t. Also, there’s a background of harassment and vandalism here. Some of that might have been ‘youthful exuberance,’ but not this incident. This was an attack.”
Judge Gortner nodded soothingly and said, “Let’s just go over the facts of the matter, Mr Rafferty. First, you’ve accused Jerry and other, unnamed, youths of harassment. Have you eyewitnesses, photographs, statements, anything at all, to support that claim?”
“No.”
“Have you any evidence to support your contention that my grandson damaged this man, uh, Thorneycroft’s house or injured his person?”
“I have his slingshot.”
“You mean you have a slingshot. Someone’s slingshot. But, Jerry’s? I don’t know about that.” He shook his head slowly. “Do you have any purchase documentation? Photographic or taped evidence? An independent eyewitness?”
“No.”
“I see. And isn’t this the same old man who recently fired a high-powered rifle, endangering his neighbors and passersby?”
“I have the sudden feeling Jerry Gortner was already gone when the cops showed up that night. I’m willing to bet his name is not on the police report.”
Gortner smiled contentedly and spread his hands wide. “Now, I ask you, considering all the evidence, why would anyone believe Jerry was involved in yesterday’s incident? I should say, yesterday’s alleged incident.”
“Personally I find it significant that you had me picked up and brought here. The DA might, too.”
“Mr Rafferty, are you here? Why, I believe my appointment book and diary, not to mention my staff, would confirm that I’m alone right this minute. Working on a speech, I believe.”
“All right,” I said. “I get the picture. You’ve decided the kid is going to get away with it.”
“Be practical,” Gortner said. “And, after all, what are we talking about? As Rod said, a few pebbles and a broken window.”
That made me mad. “I’m having a helluva time making you understand that we are not talking about a few pebbles and an inner-tube slingshot. Those kids had hunting slingshots—weapons, effectively—and these things.” I stood up and dug the ball bearing out of my pocket. “They leave big dents in things like houses and heads.”
Gortner had a polished stone paperweight on his desk. I picked it up and weighed it in my hand. Almost two pounds. Probably heavy enough. Judge Gortner looked suddenly apprehensive.
“Relax,” I said. I put the ball bearing down on Gortner’s desk. It began to slowly roll away across all that beautiful teak. The bearing didn’t get very far, though, because I whacked it with the stone paperweight. That made a dent in the desktop that held the shiny metal ball while I hit it twice more, a bit harder each time.
“Look at this,” I said, and lifted the bearing out of the dent. “When this bearing came out of your grandson’s high-tech slingshot, it left a bigger dent than that.”
I put the bearing back in the depression in the desktop and bashed it again. The stone paperweight broke that time. I used the biggest fragment, hammered the bearing, checked the depth of the dent and hit the bearing again. That time the paperweight fragment broke.
“Well, hell, I’m out of paperweight, but that’s almost the right size dent.”
The office door banged open. Dave, Cayman, and Caroline rushed in. There was a certain amount of oh, my goodness and what’s going on and are you all right, Judge chatter. Most of the dialogue came from Cayman and Caroline. Dave just looked like he wanted to fight again.
Gortner waved at the three of them. “I’m fine,” he said. “Mr Rafferty was, er, conducting a demonstration, that’s all.” While he talked to them, he looked at the dent in his desktop.
I handed Gortner the ball bearing. He took it carefully, with his thumb and forefinger, and fitted it into the dent. Then he took it out and looked at it again. Finally, he looked up at me. “Are you sure about this?”
“Look at my face,” I said. “Would a man with a face like this lie?”
Gortner frowned. “I didn’t realize this,” he said. “I wasn’t fully informed.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was actin
g or not. Some of those professional Texans are pretty good.
“Well, for god’s sake, get that kid slowed down, will you? Before somebody gets badly hurt.”
He nodded, still examining the ball bearing, then said, “Thank you. Rest assured I will deal with the matter. Dave, take Mr Rafferty to wherever he wishes to go. Now, shoo, all of you. I want to think about this.”
I sat up front with Dave while he drove me back. A few blocks from my office, Dave said, “How ’bout someday we get togedda down at the gym, huh? Mix it uppa couple a rounds, whaddaya say?”
“I don’t fight for fun, Dave.”
“Aw, c’mon. Be a sport.”
“Forget it,” I said. “It wouldn’t work. If we fought your way, with rounds and rules and all that, you’d wipe up the floor with me. If we fought my way, we’d either put each other in the hospital or I’d forget myself and shoot you.”
Dave oozed the Continental to the curb in front of my building as smoothly as a cat sliding on wet glass. “Well, okay,” he said. “Damn shame, though. Not many guys worth fightin’, ya know?”
“Yeah. Well, thanks anyway, Dave.” I got out of the car and it slid away into the passing traffic.
Then I realized I still hadn’t had lunch, so I set off in another attempt to walk to the barbecue place.
That time, it worked.
Chapter 19
“If I fired every brush jockey because some tight-assed housewife claimed he stared at her boobs, I’d be out there cleaning pools all by my lonesome,” Larry Davis said. He slapped the armrest of his wheelchair and slipped briefly into his black stallion routine. “Honky rednecks done love to see that, wouldn’t they? A crippled spade they could roll into the pool for grins.”
Friday afternoon, late. I was back at Aqua-Tidy, in Larry Davis’s kitchen. I’d originally come out to run down an Ortega angle, but once there, I’d settled in like a lost house pet. It was the most pleasant time I’d had since I left my house that morning. And why go home now? Hilda had a business dinner scheduled, the freeways would be clogged with rush-hour traffic, and Larry seemed happy enough with the company. So he should. After all, I was being a thoughtful guest. We were drinking my beer.
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