“Having tried to have one of my people killed, Mr. Ackerman is hardly likely to get in touch with me,” Mac said stiffly. “I gather he took quite a beating, but unfortunately he seems to be recovering well. Do you wish any action taken there?”
I said, “Hell, no. If we start going after every fanatic we meet, we’ll never get any work done; the world is full of them. Besides, when he’s on his feet again, he’ll probably go after Palomino, and that’s not half a bad idea. There just wasn’t anything I could do about the guy, the way things worked out.” I shrugged. “One thing, I doubt that we have to worry about Señor Hector Palomino Escobar putting prices on writers’ heads, no matter what they scribble about him. I believe he got the message.”
“I have been thinking about the Rushdie problem,” Mac said thoughtfully. “It is really a matter of world concern, Eric. Since the British seem reluctant to deal with the current ayatollah, whatever his name is, maybe . . .”
I said hastily, "Don’t look at me, sir! I don’t speak Arabic worth a damn.”
It turned out that cherry-blossom time was over, which was just as well, since I wouldn’t have taken time to see them anyway, getting out of Washington as fast as I could. I didn’t think he was serious, but you never know. Now I packed my gear back into the Subaru and called the dog. I had to admit that he was better about answering the whistle than Happy had been, but I had a hard time keeping him in the rear seat of the car. I suppose he Was used to limousines where he rode up front with the chauffeur.
I said, “No, goddamn it, get in back!. Kennel up, you pigheaded mutt! What does it take to get it through your thick skull—”
I broke off, because a very familiar van had just rolled into the parking area; for a moment I expected Mark Steiner to step out and start pulling his shooting equipment out of the rear. But it wasn’t Mark, of course. I went over there.
“Hi, Ruth.”
“Hello, Matt. The girls wanted to say good-bye to you.”
“Only the girls?”
She said, “Is Bravo giving you trouble?”
“It takes a while, but he’s a good pup.”
She said, “That was the last thing he asked, in that room, wasn’t it? That you’d really take his dog and look after him. ” I said, “The trouble with this business is that the bad guys often have redeeming traits and the good guys are often real bastards. . . . What’s that?”
She was holding out to me a small plastic box, a square, about half an inch thick and four inches to the side. I glanced at her, took the box, opened it, and looked at the computer disk inside.
She said, “No, this is not Mark’s book; that’s really gone, just as I said. But I told you once that there was an appendix he hadn’t finished. For every name in the text there was a footnote referring the reader to a fairly complete dossier on the person mentioned, at the rear of the book. Mark kept a backup copy of the appendix in his tackle box or whatever you call it, right here in the van. Actually, it holds more really incriminating stuff than the main body of the text.” She pushed it into my hand. “It’s yours. Do what you want with it. After all, you saved my life.”
I looked at the disk for a moment; then I grinned. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll send it to Ackerman, from the two of us.”
She looked startled. “To Roger? But—”
“Coals of fire,” I said. “If it helps him get Palomino, think how he’ll hate us, wondering every minute if we’re going to pop up and claim the credit.” I stopped grinning. “Besides, he’ll probably make better use of the information than somebody who goes by the rules, and I don’t really think the drug business should be encouraged, even though it’s not my problem, officially speaking.”
After a moment Ruth said, “You’re really kind of a nice guy, in a way.”
I said, “I don’t hold grudges very long, just long enough to keep me in adrenaline when I need it.”
“Of course, you’re also kind of an awful guy, in a way,” she said.
We stood for a moment in silence, in the cool high-country sunshine. The Jemez Mountains on the horizon were not as spectacular as the Andes. The two little girls were picking up spent cartridge cases as if they were pretty seashells on the beach. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t really mind having them as my little girls.
“It wouldn’t work, Matt.” Ruth’s voice was soft.
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do. You think I’m a super-sensitive little idiot who can’t bear to pull a trigger and can’t stand thinking about that old man you executed so deliberately, not to mention the others. . . . Oh, I saw what you did with that machete. Ugh. But it’s not that, really. It’s just that the dangerous work you do . . . well, I’ve had two husbands who died violently. I don’t need a third. The girls don’t need another dead daddy, damn it. And what if . . . what if somebody shooting at you were to hit one of them?”
Then the little girls came running, and I told them that the short, fat ones were .45s, the medium ones were either .38 or 9mm, and the little bitty ones were .22s.
“I got to shoot a twenty-two in the secret place where we were,” Andrea said proudly.
“Mommy’s going to get us a puppy,” the little one said. “She promised.”
I glanced quickly at Ruth. She smiled. “That’s another one I owe you. I think I can stand a puppy now, if it’s a small puppy.”
There was a little pause; then I said, “It’s okay, Ruth. Everything is okay. Take care.”
I watched the van drive away. I’d left the car door open and Bravo had gone off again, but he came racing in to the whistle as before and jumped in where he was supposed to, making the little station wagon rock on its springs. He was a very substantial pup and I looked forward to seeing him with a duck in his mouth. Or make that a goose; he had the size for it. When I reached home, there was a car parked in front of my gate. It wasn’t one of the workmen who were doing the final repairs in back. One of them might be driving a small red sports car shaped like a watermelon seed; but this was Sunday. I remembered another Sunday when I’d seen a UPS van that wasn’t.
Then Belinda Nunn stepped out of the little car and came back to me. She was wearing some kind of a baggy jumper outfit, I guess current fashions aren’t supposed to be flattering, but I remembered a rather brave and uncomplaining young woman in grimy jeans and a pretty lady in chiffon, and it didn’t matter anyway. After a while, knowing what they are, remembering the times you’ve shared with them, you start to disregard how they look at any given moment.
“This is a hard place to find,” she said.
“Next time let me know and I’ll send out the Saint Bernards with the brandy.”
She glanced at Bravo. “Well, you've got a dog that’s big enough. ’’ She glanced toward the house. “Do you have anybody in there, Matt? Or are you planning to move anybody in?”
I said, “Ruth just stopped by with her girls, to say goodbye, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I guess it is,” Belinda said. “Well, you are kind of a target, and I didn’t think she was the kind to want to live in the line of fire.”
“She has her daughters to think of.”
“Sure. Well, in that case . . After a momentary pause Belinda went on: “There was some unfinished business. It’s the only time in my life I ever spent a week with a man and finished as pure as I started. I thought that if you had nobody else on your mind, maybe we could . . . Well, aren’t you curious, too?”
I was.
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The Threateners Page 30