Potshot (19 page)

‘That’s him.’

‘He done the collecting,’ Hawk said. ‘Started down there, head of the street, at the Western Wear Store, and worked right down Main Street.’

‘How much backup?’

‘Seven, besides him. Four in each vehicle. When he went in the stores, a big fat guy went with him. Carried the black bag.’

‘Pony,’ I said.

‘Pony?’

‘That’s his name.’

‘Guy’s big enough to haul a beer wagon.’

‘Maybe they’re being ironic,’ I said.

‘Tha’s probably it,’ Hawk said. ‘I bet there’s a lot of irony out there in the old Dell.’

‘What’d the other guys do while The Preacher was collecting?’

‘Moved along down the street with him,’ Hawk said. ‘Stayed in the vehicles while Preacher and Pony went in.’

‘Weapons?’

‘Handguns probably. I didn’t see anything bigger.’

When Hawk was engaged by something, he occasionally forgot his mocking black accent. It was how you could tell he was engaged.

‘This is beginning to sound easy,’ I said.

‘It’ll be easy,’ Hawk said.

‘They know we’re here,’ I said.

‘Probably. But The Preacher’s been the stud horse around here a long time. He’s so used to not having trouble that he forgot there is any. My guess, he don’t care if we’re here.’

‘You working on a plan?’ I said.

Hawk nodded toward the head of the street

‘We park Sapp in one car up there,’ he said. ‘And we put Bobby Horse in the other car, at the bottom of the street. Chollo in the alley there.’ Hawk pointed with his chin at a point mid-way along Main Street. ‘The little Vegas guy…’

‘Bernard,’ I said. ‘Bernard J. Fortunato.’

‘Him,’ Hawk said. ‘Across and down a little, between the bakery and the drug store. And Vinnie in the hotel window, top floor.’

‘Why Vinnie?’ I said.

‘Best shooter,’ Hawk said.

‘I’m not sure he’s better than Chollo,’ I said.

‘He ain’t worse,’ Hawk said.

‘No. You’re right. Vinnie’s in the window. Which leaves you and me to brace Pony and The Preacher.’

‘Best for last,’ Hawk said and took a pull at his beer.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That’ll work.’

‘’Course it’ll work,’ Hawk said. ‘You just jealous you didn’t think it up.’

‘How hard was it to think up?’ I said.

‘Tha’s not the point,’ Hawk said.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Next week we’ll implement your plan.’

‘Hot diggity,’ Hawk said.

J. George Taylor asked me to come talk with him. Except for J. George, the office was empty when I got there.

‘Mary Lou says you’ve been questioning her,’ he said after I was seated in his client chair.

‘She does?’ I said.

‘She feels you were somewhat accusative.’

‘And she complained to you?’

‘We’re friends. Since her husband’s death, I have been looking out for her, sort of like a father.’

‘Sort of,’ I said.

‘And I really think she needs a gentle touch. For God’s sake, her husband was murdered.’

‘By the Dell,’ I said.

‘Of course, by the Dell.’

‘You know this.’

‘Everyone knew that he was standing up to the Dell. Everyone knew they had threatened him.’

‘Who did the actual threatening?’

‘The Dell.’

‘Which one?’

‘The Preacher.’

‘You heard him?’

‘No. It was his, ah, brute – Pony.’

‘You heard Pony threaten Steve?’

‘Of course. Half the town heard him.’

‘Who besides you, specifically?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ J. George said. ‘The mayor heard him. Luther Barnes. Mark Ratliff. Henry Brown. About two dozen other people in the bar.’

‘Which bar?’

‘The bar at The Jack Rabbit.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ J. George said. ‘Steve was at the bar, having a beer. Pony walked in and went right up to him and threatened him.’

‘With death?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Pony? I don’t remember exactly. They had an argument and Steve was shouting, and Pony tapped him on the chest with his forefinger and said to him, “You’re a dead man.”’

‘How did Steve react?’

‘He just stared at Pony. He wouldn’t admit it later, but I think he was scared. Pony is… my God, Pony is terrifying.’

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘And?’

‘Terrifying,’ I said.

‘But we’ve gotten off the track,’ J. George said. ‘I really wanted to urge you to go easy on Mary Lou.’

‘You bet,’ I said. ‘You know anybody named Morris Tannenbaum?’

J. George leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful.

‘Morris Tannenbaum,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘No. I can’t say that I have.’

‘Spend much time in Los Angeles?’ I said.

‘No more than I must,’ J. George said. ‘Will you be able to give Mary Lou a little more space?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Sorry I upset her.’

J. George stood and put out his hand.

‘I know, I know,’ J. George said. ‘Just trying to do your job. Women are difficult.’

I shook his hand and smiled as if I believed everything he said. Outside I forged bravely through the heat to The Jack Rabbit Inn. Bebe was at a table having lunch with another woman. There were some papers between them. I smiled at Bebe and went to the bar. The bartender came down to me and put a paper doily on the bar in front of me.

‘What can I get you?’ he said.

‘Were you working the bar,’ I said, ‘when Pony threatened Steve Buckman?’

‘I got nothing to say about that,’ the bartender said.

‘It’s just background,’ I said. ‘I’ll never quote you.’

I put a $100 bill on the bar. The bartender looked at it, and then palmed it off the bar in a move so expert that the bill seemed to disappear magically.

‘You do and I’ll say you’re lying.’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘Yeah. I was here.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Steve’s at the bar. This monstrous big dude from the Dell comes in. Him and Steve have an argument. The Dude says to Steve, “You’re a dead man.” And walks out.’

‘The big dude was Pony?’

‘Yeah.’

The bartender went down the bar and got drink orders from a couple of blonde women in tennis whites. He mixed two cosmopolitans and poured them out into two glasses and it came out just right. He put the drinks in front of the blondes, rang the tab, put it in the bar gutter in front of them, and came back down the bar to me.

‘You want something to drink?’

‘Sure, give me a Perrier with a slice of orange in it.’

‘You got it,’ he said and reached under the bar.

‘Ice?’

‘Yeah. Lot of people hear him?’

‘Pony?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When he threatened Steve Buckman?’

‘It’s my only hundred,’ I said.

The bartender grinned.

‘Can’t blame me for trying,’ he said. ‘Sure lot of people heard him. Bar was full. All the regulars.’

‘J. George?’ I said.

‘Taylor?’ the bartender glanced at Bebe across the room and lowered his voice. ‘Yeah he was here, and his crew. Barnes, Brown, the mayor.’

‘Who else?’ I said.

‘Christ what am I, a computer? Billy Bates was here with his wife. Mr and Mrs Gordon. Ratliff the producer. Tom Pagha.’

He put my Perrier down on the little doily. I put a ten on the bar. He grinned.

‘On the house,’ he said.

The woman across from Bebe stood up. They shook hands. The woman took some of the papers and left. I moved over to her table as Bebe was sliding the remaining papers into her briefcase. She looked up as I sat down across from her.

‘Well, hello,’ she said.

‘Hello.’

‘I just sold a nice Spanish-style ranch to that woman,’ Bebe said. ‘She’s from Flagstaff. Sick of the snow, I guess.’

‘How is business these days?’

‘Hideous,’ she said. ‘Nearly everybody wants to sell, and nobody wants to buy, unless they’re from out of town and don’t know about the Dell.’

‘And you don’t feel obligated to tell them.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Real estate prices are dropping like a stone. They used to be really high, because there was nowhere to expand.’

‘You’re in the middle of nowhere,’ I said. ‘Why can’t you expand?’

‘It’s all desert,’ Bebe said. ‘We’ve expanded to the limit of our water supply already.’

‘What if you had enough water?’

‘The Dell would ruin sales anyway.’

‘What if the Dell were gone?’

Bebe smiled at me.

‘I’d be selling real estate as from early in the morning to really late at night,’ she said.

‘Anybody buying property these days?’

‘George made a couple of sales to some developer,’ she said. ‘I think they’ll lose their shirt.’

She paused and smiled and shrugged.

‘But they’re consenting adults,’ she said.

‘Caveat emptor,’ I said.

The papers were stashed in her little black briefcase. She zipped the top closed and looked up at me from under her eyebrows.

‘I was a little fuzzy, the last time I saw you,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t drink on a light breakfast.’

‘None of us should,’ I said. ‘But sometimes we do.’

‘Did we have a good time?’ she said.

I tried to put a lecherous gleam in my eyes. It wasn’t hard. I was good at lecherous.

‘How quickly they forget,’ I said.

‘Was I alright?’

‘You certainly were,’ I said.

I wasn’t as good at enthusiasm. But she didn’t seem to notice.

‘I hate not remembering. Maybe we should go over it again sometime.’

‘Be my pleasure,’ I said.

‘That’s what they tell me,’ Bebe said.

‘Did you know that Mary Lou knew both Dean Walker and Mark Ratliff in Los Angeles?’

‘I knew about Mark,’ Bebe said. ‘I don’t think I knew that about Dean Walker.’

‘You told me that Mary Lou Buckman was sleeping with both of them.’

‘And probably some others,’ Bebe said. ‘I knew you’d have trouble believing it. Men are so stupid.’

‘How do you know?’

‘About Mary Lou?’

‘And Walker and Ratliff,’ I said.

‘Dean Walker is merely surmise,’ Bebe said, ‘and intuition.’

‘And Ratliff?’

Bebe smiled.

‘Pillow talk,’ she said.

I nodded and we smiled knowingly. Two insiders. Intimates.

‘You mean I’m not the only one?’ I said.

‘Almost.’

‘He say anything else about her?’ I said.

‘Mark? About Mary Lou? Oh yes. Actually it was a little annoying. He’d be in bed with me. You know, afterwards. And he’d be blabbing on about how he loved Mary Lou and had followed her to Potshot and would wait forever if he had to… crap like that.’

‘You didn’t believe him?’ I said.

‘Mark’s a Hollywood person,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to believe a word he speaks.’

‘And he wasn’t waiting for her celibately,’ I said.

Bebe was good at lecherous gleaming too.

‘Not likely,’ she said. ‘But as soon as he was through boffing me, he’d talk about her.’

‘So, she was always on his mind,’ I said.

Bebe grinned.

‘She was always on his mind.’

I called Cawley Dark and talked with him for fifteen minutes. Then I hung up and went out onto the front porch where Tedy Sapp was taking orders and mixing drinks. The sun had set, quite flamboyantly, and the blue twilight was settling around us the way it does. Bernard J. Fortunato had fixed up a tray of cheese and crackers and was passing it around.

‘Bernard went in today and rented the hotel room,’ Hawk said. ‘Street side.’

‘I told him straight when I reserved it what I wanted,’ Bernard said.

‘You see the room?’ I said.

‘Bet your ass.’

‘So Vinnie’s in the window with a rifle,’ Hawk said.

‘Room looks right down on the broad’s office,’ Bernard said.

‘Mary Lou’s?’

‘Yeah. Buckman Outfitters.’

‘So we’ll be sure to brace them there,’ I said. ‘In front of her storefront.’

‘You want us to be surreptitious?’ Hawk said.

‘Surreptitious?’ Sapp said.

Hawk shrugged.

‘I educated in head start,’ Hawk said.

‘Really worked,’ Sapp said.

‘No reason to be covert,’ I said.

‘You too?’ Sapp said.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘I’m a straight Anglo white guy of European ancestry. We’re naturally smart.’

‘You missed Bernard,’ Sapp said.

‘
Tall
straight Anglo white guy,’ I said.

‘Hey,’ Bernard said.

‘Perfect,’ Sapp said.

‘So we all got shotguns but Vinnie,’ Hawk said.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘The town fathers hired us to do this. Cops won’t interfere.’

‘You know that?’ Vinnie said.

‘They haven’t so far,’ I said. ‘What are you going to use from the window?’

‘The Heckler,’ Vinnie said.

‘Good choice,’ I said.

‘Of course it is,’ Vinnie said.

‘I will use a handgun,’ Chollo said. ‘Giving me a shotgun is like asking Picasso to paint with a broom.’

Vinnie nodded.

‘Just what I need,’ I said. ‘A couple of divas.’

I looked at Bobby Horse.

‘I suppose you want a bow and arrow,’ I said.

‘Kiowas are flexible,’ he said.

We were quiet. Sapp went around refreshing drinks.

‘Try the blue cheese,’ Bernard said. ‘Nice lingering bite to it.’

I looked at Hawk.

‘J. George Taylor talked with me today,’ I said. ‘Asked me not to annoy Mary Lou.’

‘Well, then, you better not,’ Hawk said.

‘Then I had a club soda with Bebe Taylor,’ I said.

‘I thought you was going to introduce me,’ Hawk said.

‘I thought you liked a challenge,’ I said.

‘Out here getting laid a challenge,’ Hawk said.

‘She said that it was hard to sell real estate because of the Dell.’

‘Un-huh.’

‘She said everybody wants to sell, and nobody wants to buy. Real estate prices are dropping like a stone.’

‘Sure,’ Bernard said. ‘That’s the old law of supply and demand. So what?’

Hawk sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the railing. He had a small drink of gin and tonic.

‘So the natural price for property here been artificially lowered,’ he said.

‘By the Dell.’