Pastime (14 page)

"That's it?" Maishe said.

I nodded.

"And if we don't?"

"Then I drop Gerry like a stone and take my chances with you."

"How many rounds you got left?" Maishe said.

I didn't say anything.

Maishe looked at Anthony. Anthony had nothing to say.

"You drop Gerry and you got nothing left to bargain with," Maishe said.

I didn't say anything. Pearl had given up on the pillowcase and walked over to sniff at the tracker on the ground behind the granite. He reached back absently and scratched her ear with his free hand. Her tail wagged. Maishe shifted his feet a little. He looked at Gerry.

"What do you want, Gerry?" he said.

I spoke softly to Gerry, my mouth two inches from his left ear, the pressure of the Browning steady in his right one.

"I would like to kill you, Gerry. It would be a good thing for civilization. And it would be fun. I'll keep you alive if it gets me out of here. But you know that if the show starts, your brains will be floating in the water."

"How do I know you'll let me go?" His voice was little more than a hiss.

"Because I said I would."

Gerry was silent. Maishe spoke again.

"What do you want us to do, Gerry?"

"If I knew you'd let me go…" Gerry whispered.

I didn't say anything. Pearl left the tracker and moseyed happily down to the stream edge and drank noisily and long. Ripe woodchuck will give you a thirst.

Gerry raised his voice. "Do what he says."

"You want we should leave you?" Maishe said.

Gerry's voice was shrill with the effort of squeezing it out.

"Do what he says. I believe him. He'll let me go later."

What Gerry really believed was that I'd kill him now. We all knew that.

Maishe shrugged. The tracker got to his feet. He still had the big revolver out but he let it slide down at his side. The guy with the pillowcase eased out of his crouch.

"Go back the way you came," I said. "Cross downstream. Keep going. If I see you or even hear you in the woods I will blow his brains out. And then you can explain to Joe how you let that happen, and who was in charge, and how four of you let one guy do it. Joe will be interested."

Nobody moved for a moment. Then Maishe said, "Fuck it," and the four of them began to drift back toward the stream, twenty yards or so down from where Gerry and I stood. I turned slowly as they went, keeping Gerry between us.

The tracker entered the streambed last. As he walked into the water he said to me, "Your dog?"

"Yeah."

"Nice dog."

"Thanks."

"Mass Pike's about three miles." He jerked his head. "Back that way. Stay on the ridgeline."

I nodded again. Then he was out of the stream.

"Maybe we'll see you down the road," he said.

I didn't answer and he was into the woods, and in a minute he was out of sight.

I was having trouble concentrating. My mind kept moving back over things.

I was cold and wet, but my body felt parched, and the pain in my leg pounded up and down my left side. Pearl came back to nuzzle my hand and went off again. I thought about beer. I had come down to New York, a life time ago, to fight a guy named Carmen Ramazottie, from Bayonne. We had fought a prelim at St. Nick's and I had put Carmen down with a very nice combination that my Uncle Bob had worked on with me. Bob and I stayed at a dump on the West Side called the Bristol, and the morning after the fight we checked out and took a subway to Brooklyn to see a ball game at Ebbets Field before we got the late bus home.

It was late August in New York. The subway was dense and sweaty and running slow. I had a headache and the right side of my face under the eye was puffy and darkening steadily from the reiterated application of Carmen's pretty good left jab. Coming up into the harsh city sun made my head hurt worse. I had been thirsty since the second round of last night's fight. I knew I was dehydrated and in time I'd catch up, but it didn't make me less thirsty. As we crossed Flatbush Avenue, the tar was soft from the sun, and the ballpark crowd was damp with sweat. Shirts clung. Bra straps chafed.

There were a lot of black faces in the crowd, come to see Jackie Robinson play.

Ebbets Field was small and idiosyncratic. It was a short 297 feet to the right-field screen. The base of the scoreboard in right was angular, and

Carl Furillo, and Dixie Walker before him, had made an art of playing to odd caroms off it. There were advertising signs on the outfield walls. The fans were close to the field, and after a game they could stream across the outfield and exit through the gate in deep center field. The Cardinals were in, their gray road uniformstrimmed in red; Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst. We got seats behind first base while there was still batting practice to watch. I was old enough to drink in New York. In Boston I was still underage. We got two big paper cups of Schaefer beer and settled back.

The beer was cold from the tap and fresh. I felt it seep through me the way spring rain invigorates a flower.

In the bottom of the first inning Duke Snider did his little kick step and hit the ball into Bedford Avenue. My Uncle Bob and I toasted him with an other beer. My headache was going. The throbbing in my cheek diminished.

Stan Musial. Duke Snider. Cold beer in the sunshine. Only yesterday, when the world was young.

"I gotta rest," Gerry said.

My focus swam back onto him. He had slumped to the ground, his back against a birch tree, his legs sprawled before him, his arms limp at his side. I realized I'd lost track of him entirely. I didn't remember walking the last half mile. I didn't remember coming down the side of this gully.

I was lucky it was Gerry. The tracker would have brained me by now with a rock. I leaned against another birch trunk. If I sat down I wasn't sure I could get up.

"Get up," I said. Time was not my friend. I didn't have much of it left.

Gerry's head was sunk on his chest. He shook it silently.

"Okay," I said. "See you around."

My voice sounded like someone else's. Someone trying to sound perky. And failing. Pearl bounded over and jumped up to lap my face. She put one paw on my leg. I didn't scream. I held the tree with my left arm and fended her off with my right. I noticed that I was still holding the gun in my hand, but I'd let the hammer down. I didn't remember doing that. There was some nausea. It passed slowly, like a wave slowly easing back out to sea. When it was gone enough to move, I jerked my head at Pearl and started off.

Gerry said, "Hey."

I kept going.

He labored to his feet, using the tree trunk. He was behind me now. I kept going. The gun in my right hand, hanging straight down, Pearl, ahead of me, nose to the forest floor, looking for groundhogs.

"Wait up," Gerry gasped.

It had become ludicrous. My hostage was chasing me. It was darkening and the drizzle had finally stopped when we reached the last rise and below us saw the traffic on the Pike. I took the leash from my pocket and whistled for Pearl. She dashed up and sat. She always dashed up and sat when she saw the leash. To her it meant a walk. Even when she was on a walk. I hooked the leash onto her collar. And we started down the slope. Pearl strained against the leash and my leg hurt exceptionally as I went downhill on it, bracing against Pearl's tug. To my right Gerry started to run toward the highway and fell and rolled noisily through the brush for maybethirty feet before he stopped and struggled up and kept moving.

Most of the cars had their headlights on, though it wasn't really dark yet.

And they paraded by swiftly and sporadically, a pageant of ordinariness, the people in them rushing to dinner, or a late meeting, unwounded, unfeverish, unarmed, dry, and at worst maybe a little stiff from their long commute.

The chances of flagging a ride were negligible, but sooner or later a state cop would cruise by, and he'd stop. If he saw us. I looped Pearl's leash over my wrist so that if I passed out she wouldn't wander off into the traffic. Gerry was standing limply ten feet down the highway. He wasn't looking at me. His head was down. His eyes may have been closed; I couldn't see.

"Walk away from me," I said. "That way. Keep going until you're out of sight. If I see you again I'll kill you."

Gerry had no words. He simply turned in the direction I'd pointed and began to stumble along the highway, his head down, weaving as he walked, as if he were drunk. Pearl was close to my leg, shying closer every time a car passed, stirring the leaves and dust along the margin of the roadbed.

I couldn't remember now who had won that baseball game. Cardinals or

Dodgers? It had probably mattered greatly then; it mattered now not at all.

I felt myself begin to dissolve. I frowned. I concentrated on looking up the Pike at the oncoming headlights. It would be harder to spot me if I keeled over. It would be harder to spot me as it got darker.

I looked down the road after Gerry Broz. I couldn't see him. The turnpike curved fifty yards ahead and he was around the curve now. I holstered the

Browning. Gerry wouldn't have the energy to circle back and jump me. Nor, probably, now that he was alone, the balls. I remembered that once; I had seen Jackie Robinson steal home. Pigeon-toed, elbows pumping, under the tag.

He was dead now. Been dead a long time. Died a young man. He lit up the sky, my Uncle Bob used to say. The headlights blurred in the mist. Except there wasn't any mist. The rain had stopped an hour ago. The first time Robinson had taken the field, Red Barber had said in his soft Southern voice on the radio, He is very definitely brunette. One pair of the blurred headlights swept over me. A car swung up onto the shoulder. The door opened and Hawk got out.

"You are very definitely brunette," I said.

Then Hawk blurred too.

I heard myself say, "Take the dog."

And then I didn't hear anything. Or see anything, except darkness visible.

Somebody else said, "In the car with a soup bone."

"On the leather seats?" someone said.

"You bled all over them already," someone else said. "Figured it didn't matter anymore."

My eyes opened. Hawk was standing at the foot of the bed, wearing a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the bed rail and I could see the butt of his gun under his arm where the jacket fell open.

"How come you were out riding around on the Pike in western Mass?" I said.

It had been me speaking all along, but I just realized it.

"Paul told me what happened," Hawk said. "I looked at a map, figured you'd get in the woods and loop for the highway. What I woulda done."

"So you been cruising it," I said.

"Un huh. Lee exit to the New York line and back, two tanks of gas."

"Paul's okay?"

"He at your place. So's his momma and her honey."

"My place?"

"You not using it," Hawk said. "Had to stash them someplace."

I shifted in the bed. There was an IV in the back of my left hand, held in place by tape. The tube ran to a drip bottle on a stand. My leg felt sore, but it wasn't throbbing anymore, and it didn't feel distended. I looked around the room. It was private. There was a silent television on a high shelf opposite, and the usual hospital apparatus on the walls, blood pressure gauges, and oxygen outlets, and spigots for purposes unclear to the lay public.

"I'm in a hospital," I said.

"Wow," Hawk said.

"I'm a trained observer," I said. "Where?"

"Pittsfield," Hawk said.

"Susan?"

"I called her," Hawk said. "She on the way, bringing you some clothes."

I was wearing a hospital johnny. I glanced at the night table.

"Wallet's in the nightstand," Hawk said. "Got your gun."

"How am I?"

"You not going to die, you not going to lose the leg, your personality not going to improve."

"So, two out of three," I said.

"Some people say none out of three," Hawk said. "Where's Gerry?"

"Left him on the turnpike," I said. "Walking toward Stockbridge."

"Want to tell me about it?" Hawk said.

I did.

"Been about thirty hours," Hawk said. "Figure Gerry be home by now."

I raised the sheet and looked at my leg. It was bandaged thickly, around the thigh. The part that showed looked a little bruised but not too puffy.

"Cops been around?" I said.

"Yeah. Hospital called them when they saw the gunshot wound. I told them you was out in the woods with the dog while I waiting in Stockbridge. When you didn't come back I went and found you."

"They believe you?"

` No.

"Don't blame them," I said.

A thin-faced, dark-haired nurse came in.

"Awake," she said.

"Yes."

She smiled without thinking about it and took out an electronic thermometer and took my temperature. She read it and nodded to herself and wrote something on her clipboard. She took my pulse, and my blood pressure, and noted those.

"We hungry yet?" she said.

"I am," I said. "How about you?"

Another automatic smile. "I'll have them bring you something."

She located a remote control unit attached to a cord on the bedside table.

"Want to sit up?"

"Sure."

I noticed that during her time in the room she had not looked at Hawk. But she was aware of him. I could see the awareness in her shoulders and the way she held her neck. She showed me the remote.

"We push this to sit up," she said. "And this turns on our television. And if we need a nurse we push this one."

I said, "Are you going to get into bed with me? Or is this we stuff just a tease?"

She looked blankly at me for a moment. Then she grinned.

"Let's wait until your leg is better," she said.

"That's what they all say."

"Oh, I doubt that," she said. "My name is Felicia. You want me"-she grinned-"for medical reasons, press the button."

She watched me while I raised the bed into a nearly sitting position. Then she turned to go. At the door she glanced back at Hawk. He smiled at her and she flushed and went out of the room. In maybe a minute she was back and with her came a young guy wearing a brown Sears and Roebuck suit. He was nearly bald, and what little was left he wore cut very short.

"Officer deShayes wants to see you," she said, and whisked her white skirt back out the door without looking again at Hawk.

DeShayes showed me a badge that said Pittsfield Police on it. Then he put the badge away and took out a small spiral notebook with a red cover.

"Feeling okay?" he said.

"On top of the world," I said.

"Good," he said. "Good. Just some routine questions here. We always have to follow up on gunshot wounds, you know."

"Yeah."

He glanced once at Hawk, who had retired to an uncomfortable ~ chair under the television set and appeared to go to sleep. Now that I was sitting up,

I could see that his jeans were black and he wore them tucked inside black cowboy boots.

"Friend of yours?" deShayes said.

"Darth Vader," I said.

DeShayes nodded. "So how did you come by this gunshot wound?"

"Self-inflicted," I said. "Accidental."

"Un huh. Could you describe the events which caused you to perpetrate this self-inflicted wound?"

"Sure. I was walking the dog, in the woods, and thought I'd take a little target practice. And accidentally shot myself."

"And where is this dog now?"

"In his car," I said, nodding at Hawk.

"And the gun with which the wound was inflicted?"

"He's got it," I said. Without opening his eyes Hawk produced my gun from inside his jacket and held it out toward deShayes. DeShayes took it and sniffed the barrel and popped out the magazine and cleared the round from the chamber. It flipped onto the bed near my hip. He thumbed the shells out of the magazine, onto the bed beside the first one.

He nodded to himself, the way the nurse had after she'd taken my temperature.

"You're from Boston?" deShayes said. He put the empty magazine back in my gun, put the gun on the night table, picked up the five shells, and dropped them into his suitcoat pocket.

"Yes."

"A private detective."

"Yes."

"Licensed to carry this gun?"

"Yes."

"Do you happen to have the license with you?" "In the wallet, in the drawer," I said.

He reached into the drawer and took out my wallet and handed it to me.

"Take out the gun permit please, and your ID." I did, and handed them to him. He looked them over carefully and made a couple of notes in his little spiral notebook with his blue Bic pen. Then he handed the stuff back to me.

"Live in Boston?" he said.

"Yes."

"Where you staying out here?"

"Just came out for the day," I said.

"Why?"

"Take the dog in the woods. She loves the woods."

"Two-hour drive to walk the dog?"

"She's a good dog," I said.

He nodded. His face was blank.

"That's a Browning, isn't it?" DeShayes nodded at the black automatic lying on the night table.

"Yes."

"Don't they usually hold thirteen rounds in the clip?"

"Yeah."

"There's only four rounds in your clip and one in the chamber."

"I fired off eight rounds target shooting."

"One of which hit you, according to the surgeon, in the back middle quadrant of your left thigh."

"Embarrassing, isn't it."

"Actually I think it's more than embarrassing, sir. I think it's bullshit," deShayes said.

I didn't say anything. Hawk remained peaceful with his eyes closed. His legs straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.

"How'd you get out here?" deShayes said.

"Drove out, separate cars."

"And where is your car now?"

"Where I parked it, I hope. In the parking lot at the Red Lion."

DeShayes made some more notes.

"Stockbridge police found a car registered to you, this morning, parked in front of a house in town. Tires had been shot out, and most of the windows in the house had been shot out. They're still digging bullets out of the plaster."

"Son of a gun," I said. "Somebody must have hot-wired it."

"No sign of that," deShayes said.

"Car thieves are getting very clever these days, aren't they?"

DeShayes didn't comment. He wrote another thing in his little notebook.

"You have anything to add?" he said.

"You know what I know," I said.

"Sure," deShayes said. "They tell me you'll be here awhile. If you decide to leave before I get back to you, give me a call." He handed me a card that read Detective Joseph E. deShayes.

"What's the E for?" I said.

"Make sure you check with me before you leave," deShayes said. "Got it?"

"I think so," I said. "He can help me with the hard parts." I nodded at

Hawk.

DeShayes stood. He took my five cartridges out of his pocket and put them in an ashtray on the night table.

"Be careful with these," he said.