“A fine time for you to admit it,” I said.
“Lee, I’m the ideal sacrificial lamb. I can take care of myself, and I’m a good runner. Three years ago, before I busted my knee, I place fourth or fifth in a lot of races, some of them pretty big. Then I had to bow out, but the recent surgery was a success. It’s all on record. With a little luck, and if I push myself, I can come in fourth or fifth on this. I know it, and if Spaulding and his men have done their homework, they know it.”
“That’s probably why he was on the list, Lee,” added Richard.
“I know, I know,” I said. “But I still don’t—”
“This could force their hand.” I could tell Gurn felt he was winning us over, and he pushed even harder. “Worst case scenario, I’ll drop out fifty yards from the finish line.”
“Worst case scenario, they drop you fifty yards from the finish line.” I glared at the man I loved, unconvinced.
Gurn looked back at me, one of his radiant smiles breaking out on his face. “Liana Margaret Alvarez, you’re one of the most intuitive PIs I’ve ever met. You’ll make sure they don’t.”
Chapter Fifteen
Repercussions Are No Fun
I drove home from the meeting and its ensuing revelations, with sweating palms, an acid stomach, and a tic in my right eye. Between not being able to talk Gurn out of competing in the race the next day, and not being able to get in touch with Flint, I’m surprised that’s all I had.
Gurn left the meeting and drove straight home, with the idea of working out, having an early dinner loaded with carbs, and getting a good night’s sleep before the race. How like a man. I probably wouldn’t close my eyes the entire night. The next day, there would be dark bags, adding to the rambunctious tic. A charming combo, but I knew how it would be.
After stowing the car in the garage, I ran up the stairs two at a time and found a scrawled note from Tío taped to my front door.
Mi sobrina, I go to the shelter. Three dogs are having the babies, and I go to help. I have left a burrito in the oven for your dinner and fed Tugger. Rest, mija. Tío.
The landline began to ring from inside. Flint! For whatever reason, he was calling my home phone and not my cell. In my excitement, I tore the note off the door, jiggled the key in the lock, threw open the door, tried to push it closed with my hip, and raced to catch the phone before it went into voicemail.
“Hello, hello?” I was breathless, more from anticipation and tension than exertion.
“Lee, it’s Knoton-ah-Ken.”
“What’s wrong?” I blurted out, less from the sound of his tight and tired voice, and more from the feeling in my gut.
“It’s Dad.” His voice cracked. “He’s been shot.”
“
Dios mio.”
I let out a soft wail and gripped the phone with both hands, as if it might fall from my shaking hands. “When? How…how bad?”
“They just finished operating on him. He lost a lot of blood, Lee, a lot of blood. But he’s going to be all right. He’s going to be all right,” he repeated.
Knoton stopped talking and began to sob.
I joined him. Everything I feared had been realized. I didn’t even have to ask what happened. I knew. Spaulding and his men.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, Knoton. What hospital are you at?” I don’t think he heard me, because he started talking again, in between sobs.
“They found him in back of the dumpster behind his apartment. Somebody had dragged him there after they shot him last night next to his car. They left him to die. The trash men heard him moaning this morning and called 911. They left him to die,” he said again.
He burst into tears.
So did I. Words poured out of me before I could stop them.
“This is all my fault, Knoton,” I found myself saying. “I pulled him into this Spaulding mess and…”
“Your fault?” Flint’s son sounded so surprised, he stopped crying. “Are you kidding? You saved his life. I called to thank you. If he hadn’t been wearing his badge—”
“Badge?” I interrupted. “You mean the U.S. Marshal badge?”
“The doctors said it was right over his heart, where the bullet struck. It pushed the badge into his chest, caused a massive bruise and a lot of internal bleeding, but the bullet didn’t pierce the metal.” I heard him swallow hard. “If it hadn’t been there, the bullet would have gone straight through his heart. He would have died instantly. Instantly, Lee. Your badge saved him.”
I was about to say something when I heard the creaking sound of the front door being pushed open. I wheeled around to face Lou Spaulding holding a semi-automatic at the end of his extended right arm. It was a big gun, dull gray, and heavy looking. Even the hole in middle of its long barrel looked large.
Spaulding kicked the door closed behind him with one leg, never moving his eyes or his gun from me. I stood immobile, my mind shocked, but accepting. Wordless, I hung up the phone and dropped both arms to my side.
Spaulding was standing not ten feet away. There was no way he could miss. Sometimes, when you see death up close and personal, you are exceedingly calm.
“Mr. Spaulding, fancy seeing you here.” I was astonished by the easy, conversation tone of my voice, my flip attitude. Spaulding’s reaction was much the same. I thought I had a nervous tic; his right eye looked like it was sending out messages in Morse code.
“Surprised to see me, huh, bitch? I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted the satisfaction of taking care of you, myself, seeing the look in your eyes when I put a bullet in your brain. And don’t think anyone can save you. I read the note on the door. It’s just you and me, baby, just you and me.”
He looked and acted weird, as if he was on speed, but at the same time, burned out. Sweat poured off his forehead and face. His body twitched from head to toe, breaths coming shallow and rapid. Not exactly the sort of person you want on the working end of a gun.
The phone began to ring again, but I didn’t answer it. I decided to go with this easy, breezy film noir sort of detective, if for no other reason than its effect on Spaulding.
“Won’t you come in and sit down?” I said, in my best Miss Manners voice.
He let out a raucous laugh, pulled at the soft collar of his dark gray T-shirt with his free hand, and stretched it to wipe the sweat from the sides of his face. All the while, his
eyes never left mine. Nor mine his. I knew exactly how a snake charmer felt facing off a particularly mean-spirited cobra. And I didn’t even have a flute.
“You’re sure you won’t sit down, take a load off?”
“I won’t be here long,” he said, and laughed again, high-pitched and raw. “Just long enough to take care of you.”
I didn’t respond this time. My mind raced to see how I could get out of the inevitable fate awaiting me. It didn’t look good. Nobody in Vegas would have taken this bet.
“I already took care of your friend,” he cawed. “The big Indian. Now it’s your turn.”
Some sort of expression must have crossed my face when he mentioned what he did to Flint, because a grin grew on on his face.
“That’s right. I killed him last night. Coming into my hotel and causing all kinds of trouble with my investors and partners. You, shaking your ass in front of me and all the while… Next is that blonde bitch mother of yours. I know where she is. I know all about you and your family.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tugger fly into the room and halt abruptly. Maybe the ringing phone had brought him in, I don’t know. At first, his ears twitched, moving forward like searching antenna. Then they lay flat against his head. Hunkered down, Tugger advanced nearer and nearer the stranger holding the gun, eyes riveted on the arm extended toward me menacingly.
Spaulding didn’t see him. His focus was solely on me.
“Do you? What do you know? Tell me,” I said.
“Keep me talking, huh? Think that’s going to save you? I didn’t think it would be quite this easy to off you, little lady.” Spaulding laughed, cocked the gun, and aimed for right between my eyes.
In another moment I knew I would be dead ‘cause I don’t got no stinkin’ badges.
I took a deep breath, maybe my last, and screamed, “Tugger! Tugger! Attack! Attack!”
In that split second, Spaulding seemed to hesitate, either from confusion or surprise.
Tugger pounced onto the man’s extended arm, growling, biting and clawing at it furiously. Spaulding let out a cry of half anger, half pain, and instinctively pulled his forearm up and away. The gun went off, sending a spray of bullets into the ceiling with an earsplitting boom. Plaster rained down, as Spaulding writhed from the slashing and tearing at his flesh by the small but frenzied animal.
Simultaneously, I seized the top end of the tall brass lamp sitting on the end table, ripping off its shade. Holding it in both hands like a baseball bat, I swung the heavy base into Spaulding’s face with all my might. I heard a cracking sound, like the breaking of a bone, maybe his jaw. Pivoting from the impact, he fell to the floor, unconscious.
I dropped the lamp with a thud, ran over, picked up the gun, and knelt down for my pet. Tugger was standing beside the man’s limp body, half growling, half meowing, bloody jaws working feverishly. Fortunately, Spaulding was face down on my hardwood floor. I didn’t have to see the damage done by a lamp I can barely lift when there’s no adrenaline pumping.
“Tugger, Tugger, come here, baby. Come here.” I picked him up and cradled him in my arms, where I felt him begin to relax. I half fell into a chair with the little guy in my lap, grabbed the phone with a trembling hand, and punched in 911.
Keeping an eye on the motionless man at my feet, I set the gun on the floor next to me, put the call on speakerphone, and waited for the police to answer. After giving my name, address and a brief description to the police, I concentrated on my four-footed hero, cooing to him, calming both of us down with words of love.
Facial tissue from a nearby dispenser—Mom thinks paper tissues should be close at hand and everywhere—allowed me to wipe the blood from Tugger’s mouth, feet, and legs with shaky, but gentle strokes. Then I searched his little body to make sure the cleaned up blood had belonged solely to the scumbag at my feet. It did. Tugger leaned against me and began to purr, the sweetest sound I’d heard in a while.
I don’t remember hanging up on 911, if I even did, or exactly what answers I gave to the dispatch officer. The police and ambulance arrived at the same time, Frank no more than ten minutes later. Spaulding was still unconscious, having made not one bit of noise. He might have been dead for all I knew.
* * * *
“You sure you’re okay, Lee?”
My father’s lifelong friend and my godfather stood over me, both hands on his hips. I looked up into Frank’s concerned face and nodded. I wore a pasted-on, reassuring smile and went back to stroking a sleeping Tugger in my lap. Personally, I wasn’t feeling very reassured. Far from it.
I looked over to the wet spot on the hardwood floor, now clean but darker than the surrounding wood. A thought flashed through my mind. Would it dry to the same color as the rest of the stain, or would I have to get someone in to sand and re-stain it? Then I mentally slapped myself across the face. Sometimes I get my priorities all skewed. Fortunately, Frank didn’t seem to suspect I was having a Martha Stewart moment.
“You didn’t have to clean up the blood from the floor, Frank. I would have done it.”
“Don’t be silly, Lee. It went one-two-three. I don’t want you looking at it. I threw the towels away. I’ll get you some more.”
“Now you don’t be silly. My cup runneth over in the towel department. Mom’s been giving me a new set of towels every year for Easter since I can remember.”
Frank sat down on the large, plushy leather ottoman at my feet and leaned in with a grin. “Most kids get marshmallow peeps. But that’s your mother.”
“You’re sure she’s all right, Frank? You made sure?” I couldn’t lighten up, no matter how hard Frank tried to make me.
“Your mother’s fine.” He reached over and lightly stroked Tugger’s lustrous fur behind the ear. “More worried about you. I had a devil of a time getting her to stay put even for tonight.”
“It’s just he said…” I stopped talking, trying not to panic. “How do we know he hasn’t got one of his men—”
“He acted alone,” Frank interrupted. “My sources tell me there’s no indication anyone else was involved in these attacks on you and Flint. In fact, the rest of his henchmen and most of his investors have scurried into holes like the rats they are. Too much publicity.”
Nearly an hour had gone by. The ambulance had wheeled out the unconscious man, with the paramedics shaking their heads. Between three policemen, they’d taken my statement, wrapped up the bloody lamp, relieved me of Spaulding’s gun, commandeered mine, even though it clearly had not been fired, and searched the place for any further weapons. I keep my jewels and another revolver, my Lady Blue Special, in a safe under the floorboards near the dining room table. But I never said a word about it. A girl doesn’t like to be left completely nude.
Frank—bless him—didn’t say anything, either, though he knew very well about the safe and what was stashed in it. He merely hovered around me making sure things went as smoothly as possible. But as the minutes ticked by, I could tell something was on his mind, something he was bursting to say. I searched his face. He was nearly exploding with it, whatever it was.
“Frank, out with it.”
“Here’s what I can’t let go of, Lee. After everyone warned you to be careful, what with Spaulding on the loose, how could you leave the front door open like that?” His voice raised in intensity and volume with each word. By the end of the sentence, he sounded like he was using a megaphone.
“Promise me you won’t lose it when I tell you.” I ran my hand through my unkempt hair, catching some tangles, and accidentally yanking them hard enough to hurt. “Ouch. Time for a haircut. Too many split ends.”
“Never mind your hair.” His voice had gone into the lower register, a place where it goes when he’s upset.
“I hadn’t heard from Flint, and the phone was ringing when I was outside the door. I thought it was him. I meant to close the door all the way, thought I had, but…” I broke off and shrugged. “I know the rules, Frank. I made a mistake.”