Lassiter 06 - Fool Me Twice (44 page)

“
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
cabr
ó
n
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 & 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 to 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.