Boldt (27 page)

“I got news. I got a fix on Boldt just come through.”

Another couple of seconds.

“Yeah. Right away.”

Then Florian puts the phone back on its cradle. Naturally he's trying to work out what I have in mind but he's never going to ask, not Florian. So he stands there and waits to see what I have to say next, but instead of saying anything I go over to the pool table and take a look at Florian's clothes: polo shirt, checked sportscoat, gabardine slacks, and on the floor calfskin slip-ons. I feel the clothes and I say to Florian, “Nice. Quality goods. I was just seeing if they carried your trademark.”

Florian doesn't answer.

“Okay,” I tell him. “Now get dressed.”

Florian takes off his robe and his trunks and puts on his clothes.

“Now sit down behind the desk with your hands on top and when Draper comes in you do nothing at all. He'll see Earl but don't let that be any concern of yours. Just stay behind the desk and no movement.”

Florian does as he's told and sits behind the desk. I go over to the wall next to the door that Draper's going to be coming through and stuff as much of Earl's gun in the top pocket of my denim jacket as I can and then I lean for a while.

Time passes. I look at my watch. I figure a quarter of an hour at most. Soft ripples, reflections from Florian's pool, illuminate the wooden ceiling and the whole house is very quiet.

After a while Florian says, “I'd like to smoke a cheroot.”

I look at the desk. His silver case and his lighter are lying on the desk in front of him, clear of anything else.

“Sure,” I tell him. “Why not?”

Florian very carefully picks up the cigarette case and opens it and takes out a cheroot. He puts it in his mouth and the case snaps shut and it's like the sound of a gun going off. Just as carefully he lights his cheroot and replaces the lighter and after he's blown out some smoke he says, “It doesn't have to work out this way.”

“What way would that be?”

Florian doesn't answer that but instead he says, “In my library, I got a safe. In it there's close to forty grand. You walk out of here and it belongs to you.”

“Sure, and then when my blood is seeping into your gravel drive, you walk over and pick up the money and put it back in the safe again.”

Florian shakes his head.

“I guarantee,” he says. “I guarantee you—”

“Shut up,” I tell him.

Florian doesn't shut up. Instead he starts talking to himself but it isn't what you'd call a conversation; it's a string of meaningless obscenities because there's nothing for him to say that means anything anymore. Then from the rug comes the muffled sound of Earl Connor's voice and for the first time in his life he answers Florian back by saying, “For Christ's sake, shut up, for Christ's sake.” But Florian doesn't pay any attention; he's in a world of his own cursing the impotence of his situation.

Then, drifting around the side of the house and in through the sliding windows comes the sound of a car climbing the hill toward Florian's gates. Florian shuts up and Earl stops telling him to shut up and the room is quiet again, gradually filling up with the sound of the approaching car. Then the sound reaches its height and cuts out and a door slams and there's silence for a full minute during which silence I ease Earl's gun out of my pocket. Then there's footsteps outside, making for the door. After that, the door opens and in comes Draper making it across the room toward Florian, but before he can speak or even take in Earl, I kick the door closed very hard and say, “Hello, Draper.”

Draper spins around like a top.

The smoothness of his appearance doesn't matter anymore because anybody looking at him right now would just naturally be unable to tear their eyes away from Draper's face which has fallen apart completely—like as if somebody had dynamite-blasted Mount Rushmore. His arms automatically push outward from his body, palms open, as though somehow he could stop what he thinks is about to happen by doing that. He starts staggering backward as if that might help, too, but all he achieves is to get to Earl and fall backward, hitting another of the scatter rugs and sliding on it across the polished floor until he reaches Florian's desk. Earl himself doesn't move which is what I would have expected. Neither does Florian. But Draper's still a bundle of action, and now he's scrambling himself up the side of Florian's desk. But by the time he gets to his feet Florian says to him, “You try and run out the window, you're dead.”

This brings Draper back to some kind of sanity so he sticks by Florian's desk, gripping onto the edge of it like a security blanket, as though without it he'd fall over which is probably true. And all the while, ever since he came into the room, whatever position he's been in, he's never broken his gaze; his eyes full of terror have never left my face.

I move forward until I'm close to Earl and then I say to the assembled company, “What we do now is walk out of this room and across the hall to the door that leads to the garage; then you and Draper and me get in the back of the President and Earl drives us out and down the driveway and through the gates. Then Earl turns left instead of right and takes the mountain road until it drops down again to where it joins the highway. Everybody got that?”

There's no answer.

“Everybody got that?”

Earl, unable to see anybody else, nods his head into the sheepskin. Draper's still looking at me as though I'm Banquo's ghost, but Florian rises slowly from his seat and begins to walk around the desk close to where Draper is.

“Not just yet,” I say to Florian. Florian stops moving. I step over Earl and feel inside of Draper's jacket and take his gun away from him and throw it on the pool table. During the time it takes for me to do that, Draper doesn't move a muscle; he just stays in the same statue-like position. Then I step over Earl and say to Florian, “It's your house. You lead the way.”

Florian begins to move again and then suddenly Draper finds his voice, only it's not Draper's normal voice; it's like the sound of a tape running on a machine set a little too fast.

“What are you going to do?” he asks me. “What do you think you're going to do?”

Florian looks at him in disgust.

“He's going to kill us, you prick,” he says to Draper. I smile at them.

“That's not strictly true,” I say. “That's not quite the way it's going to be.”

When we're halfway down the mountain road, about three miles off where it joins the highway, I take the intercom and tell Earl to stop the car so that I can get out and push the button that locks the back doors once I've done that. Draper and Florian are sitting motionless on the jump seats facing me. I have the broad back seat all to myself. The car rolls to a halt and I get out and watch Earl press the button and when he's done that, I try both doors and they're okay; then I walk around to the driver's side and tell Earl to get out and stand by the car which Earl does.

“Take your clothes off, Earl.” I tell him. “Take off your suit and your shirt.”

Earl looks at me and doesn't move but I don't repeat what I've just said, so Earl begins to do what he's been told. I stand there in the morning's rising heat until he's down to his T-shirt and shorts, holding his clothes, waiting for me to tell him what to do with them, but I'm never going to tell him that. Instead I say, “Remember the bedroom, Earl?”

He doesn't say anything.

“Remember the hotel?” I ask him. “Remember Murdock's guts all over the floor spilling out of his shirt front?”

“It wasn't me,” Earl says, dropping his clothes to the ground. “I didn't shoot Murdock's guts out.”

“But you helped, Earl,” I tell him. “And if it'd gone a little differently, you would've. Wouldn't you?”

Earl shakes his head and beads of sweat flick off him into the heat of the morning.

“I didn't know the deal,” he says. “All I knew was—”

“Stop it, Earl,” I tell him. “It won't help.”

“Christ—” he begins, but I cut in on him again.

“No,” I tell Earl. “He won't help you either.”

I level at a point where the bullets will enter Earl's navel.

“Don't,” he says. “Please don't.”

“Just about there,” I say, putting the barrel against his stomach. “That's just about where Murdock got his.”

I look into Earl's eyes and I can see that even though he knows it won't do him any good, he's got to try and run even though there's nowhere for him to go and at this point I squeeze the trigger twice. Earl is thrown backward by the impact and lands flat on his back among the roadside stones. But he only holds that position for a second because the pain is so great he twists himself over onto his face, clutching his stomach, jack-knifing himself so that his bottom is raised toward the sun.

“How's it feel, Earl?” I ask him, but I'm not sure he can hear me, he's screaming so loud. So I watch him for a moment and then I put the gun to the back of Earl's head and squeeze again but this time only once. Earl shudders but apart from that, he doesn't move for a while; in fact, he doesn't move until I've taken off my own clothes and put on his, and by the time I've done that, Earl's relaxed a little bit, as much as he'll ever relax again.

Then I lean into the car and press the button and the rear doors are unlocked again. I open the door on Draper's side and tell him to get out. Draper doesn't move. I tell him again.

“Please,” he says. “Please don't.”

“Look,” I say to him. “You got it all wrong. All I want you to do is drive.”

Florian is sitting in exactly the same position as he was an hour ago. The morning traffic on the highway is getting a little heavier and the sky is a sharp, clear blue. This time I have the window between front and back open so that Draper knows I have a clear shot at his head if he tries anything.

“About a quarter of a mile farther on, there's a turn-off to the left,” I say to him. “A desert road. Take it.” I look at Draper's eyes in the driving mirror. They flicker like the eyes of a rabbit in a trap. But when we get to the turn-off, the one that leads to the ranch before Sammy's, he takes it and he keeps on going. Twenty minutes later, I tell him to stop the car. I get out and go to the driving door again and tell him to get out and get in back, an order he's only too glad to carry out because he was thinking that now it was his turn. I lock the two of them in again and press another button—the one that raises the hood. When that operation's finished, I close the window between front and back.

Then I light a cigarette and wait. It's getting really hot now. There's no shade; it's almost too hot to lay your hand on the metal of the car. I look in the back. Draper's talking like a crazy man at Florian, but Florian just sits there having made his own peace.

I smoke another cigarette and I'm almost finished when I suddenly see what I'm looking for—the dust thrown up by the car I'm expecting. Then I get the sound way behind the mirage-like appearance, and in a couple of minutes the car will be here. So I walk around the front of the President and look in under the hood like the driver of the approaching car expects the driver of this one to be doing.

Then the car arrives and stops parallel to the President. I keep myself well hidden behind the raised hood so I'm not recognized.

The engine doesn't stop on the other car, but the door opens, doesn't close, then there's footsteps. The front passenger door of the President is opened, a button is pressed and the rear windows slide noiselessly down to let out the unintelligible screaming of Draper trying to let the new arrival know that it's all wrong—it's a set-up. But that noise doesn't last long because it's cut out by the sound of a single shot, and the desert is quiet again except for the echoing ghost of screams and gunshot. Then almost immediately there's another shot and that part of the job is over. Then the footsteps begin to move toward the front of the car so that a few words can be said to the chauffeur who's in on the deal; while the few words are being said, of course, the chauffeur's to be taken out, too, while he's not expecting it. But it's not going to work out that way and Styles is just about to realize that.

I have to fire the minute I appear from behind the raised hood but that's fine because Styles is strolling toward me, gun dangling at arm's length, a pose intended to reassure the conniving chauffeur. Naturally the swiftness of my appearance makes Styles begin to go into action but by then it's too late for him. I've loosed off two shots, one in the shoulder and one in the upper arm, shattering it completely, throwing Styles backward so that he collides with Draper's body which is hanging half out of the rear window. I walk forward and pick up Styles's gun and Styles keeps wriggling backward, clutching his useless arm, trying to bite back his screams of pain. I look in the back of the car; Florian's body is lying across the jump seat. Blood is leaking from his ear. I turn my attention back to Styles. He's still trying to crawl away but the pain is great and he's hardly covered any ground at all. I kneel down next to him and smile into his contorted face.

“Your turn, baby,” I tell him. “Now this time, you eat it.” I raise his own gun and put the barrel against his lips. He thrashes his head this way and that so I put my own gun down and grab his hair and beat his head on the ground a couple of times until he manages to keep himself still. His mouth is wide open with his agony and I'm just about to push the barrel of his gun down his throat when above the sounds of Styles's pain another sound comes through—the sound of another car approaching. I look up and the car is less than two hundred yards away, and in looking up, I give Styles the only opportunity he's ever going to get. In spite of his pain, he shoots out his good arm and grabs my gun off the ground by my knee, sweeps his arm upward and fires. The bullet catches me in my right side and lifts me backward so that I hit the open door of Styles's car. My body floods with pain but I hang onto the door and squeeze the trigger of Styles's gun and the bullet bounces off the ground a couple of inches from Styles's head. I squeeze again, unable to aim, and the bullet goes for the same spot; only Styles, in his efforts to line me up, has moved his head into my own line of fire and the bullet enters his head next to the bridge of his nose just below his right eye. There is a sound like a bag full of water bursting and Styles's good arm shoots skyward, perpendicular, still holding my gun. The arm quivers, shudders, then abruptly crashes to the ground again and after that Styles is completely still. Then I look down at Earl Connor's shirt and the stain is spreading all over the front and I can no longer hold onto the open door, so I have to let go of it—let go of Styles's gun; all I can do is fall to the ground and clasp with both hands to where I'm bleeding, drawing up my knees as if that will make the pain go away.