Potshot (21 page)

The Preacher just stared at me.

‘Morris tells me you and he had a deal,’ I said. ‘But he’s mad at you now and wants you gone.’

No one moved. The Preacher stared.

‘Wants to pay us to get rid of you.’

Hawk still pressed the muzzle of his .44 against Pony’s forehead. I could hear Pony breathing.

‘This guy Tannenbaum,’ The Preacher said. ‘He tell you this himself?’

‘Ronnie told us,’ I said.

The Preacher thought about that.

‘So what’s your question?’ The Preacher said.

‘What was your deal with Tannenbaum?’

The Preacher thought about that. I was pretty sure he wasn’t brave, clean and reverent, but he didn’t seem scared. In fact he didn’t seem anything. His pale eyes showed nothing that I could detect. His voice was without inflection. His body language revealed nothing. In fact there was no body language. He sat motionless.

‘Why should I tell you?’ he said.

‘Why not?’ I said.

The Preacher looked slightly amused. His face like one of those close-up photographs of rattlesnakes where the snake seems almost mischievous.

‘Why not?’ he said.

I waited, both of us ringed with weapons, both of us heated by the sun. Then The Preacher made some sort of facial gesture which was probably a smile.

‘Why not?’ he said again. ‘Tannenbaum wanted us to run people out of Potshot.’

‘Why?’

‘He never said.’

‘What did you get?’

‘I got a fee. And we got whatever we could squeeze out of the town.’

‘Why is the deal off?’

‘Maybe you should ask him.’

‘I don’t have him in the middle of the street with six weapons pointed at him.’

‘You think I’m talking ’cause I’m scared?’

The Preacher’s empty eyes held on me.

‘No,’ I said.

He nodded slowly.

‘We like what we got,’ The Preacher said. ‘We can live off this town forever, we don’t use it up.’

‘So you didn’t want to drive people out?’

‘Not till we got all there was.’

‘And Tannenbaum didn’t like it.’

‘Fuck him,’ The Preacher said.

In the silence I could hear my own breathing. I felt stiff with tension. But I held still. Everyone was probably as tight as I was. I didn’t want to start the shooting.

Carefully I said, ‘Who killed Steve Buckman?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘You got any connection with Mrs Buckman?’

The Preacher made a cackling sound. It might have been a laugh.

‘I’d like one,’ he said. ‘How about you, Pony? You like to make a connection with Mrs Buckman?’

Pony was stock-still with the muzzle of Hawk’s gun still against his forehead. It was a big gun, a .44 Magnum, with a stainless-steel finish, that made it glitter in the brutal sunshine. Neither of them had moved since the event began.

‘Guess Pony ain’t talking,’ The Preacher said.

‘Thanks for your help,’ I said. ‘Time to go.’

‘Maybe we don’t think so,’ The Preacher said.

‘Maybe we don’t care,’ I said.

The Preacher glanced slowly around at the circumstances. They were not to his advantage.

‘Things start,’ The Preacher said. ‘We kill you first.’

‘We’ll go together,’ I said.

The Preacher nodded, still assessing.

‘We’ll go,’ he said.

‘Stay away from the town,’ I said.

The Preacher gave me another one of those amused rattlesnake stares. Then he nodded at the other men. And they got back in their vehicles. As they drove away, the muscles that had been so tight now became so loose I felt like I ought to lie down. De-compensating. The sound of the two vehicles faded. Sapp tossed his shotgun onto the back seat of his car and got in the driver’s side. Bernard J. Fortunato got in with him. Chollo got in with Bobby Horse. Vinnie closed his hotel window and appeared a minute later with the rifle in a gun case. He got in with Chollo and Bobby Horse. The two cars pulled away. Hawk let the hammer back down on his big stainless-steel revolver and slid it back into its holster. He grinned at me.

‘Cool,’ he said.

The Rattlesnake Cafe served donuts. Hawk had four, and coffee. I wasn’t hungry yet. I had coffee.

‘You know he ain’t going to let this go,’ Hawk said.

I nodded.

‘Why he told you all that stuff. ’Cause he going to kill you.’

‘And you,’ I said.

‘And everybody else,’ Hawk said. ‘So he don’t care what he says to you.’

‘Which means he probably told the truth.’

‘Probably,’ Hawk said.

‘Which means maybe Steve Buckman wasn’t killed by the Dell.’

Hawk broke a donut in half and took a significant bite.

‘How ’bout the Saguaro Development Corporation?’

‘Why would they kill him?’

‘I just the hired hard case,’ Hawk said. ‘You the sleuth.’

‘They seem to be players,’ I said.

‘Anybody in Saguaro Development got the balls to do it?’

‘Mary Lou,’ I said.

Hawk nodded and finished his half donut. He took a sip of his coffee.

‘Even though she cute and got a blond ponytail?’

‘That usually eliminates a suspect,’ I said. ‘But somebody killed Buckman.’

Dean Walker slipped into the booth next to me. He was looking clean and shiny. His uniform shirt was freshly pressed. He took his hat off and laid it crown down on the table in front of him.

‘How’re the donuts?’ he said.

‘No such thing as a bad donut,’ Hawk said.

He gestured at the waitress and she brought him coffee without further instruction.

‘Did you have a little incident this morning?’ Walker said to me.

‘Big incident,’ I said.

‘Pretty good,’ he said.

‘You witness any of it?’ I said.

Walker smiled.

‘They’re not going to let it go,’ he said.

‘Probably not.’

‘There’s seven of you,’ Walker said.

‘You counted.’

‘There’s about forty of them.’

‘Preacher says he didn’t shoot Steve Buckman.’

‘Preacher ain’t the most honest guy,’ Walker said.

‘Nor the nicest,’ I said. ‘But what if he were telling the truth?’

‘Then it must have been somebody else,’ Walker said.

‘That’s why you’re chief of police,’ I said.

‘Nothing like a trained professional,’ Walker said. ‘What are you going to do about the Dell?’

‘Wait and watch,’ I said.

‘You ought to leave,’ he said.

I shrugged.

‘You won’t,’ Walker said. ‘Will you?’

I shook my head. Hawk was on his last donut. He seemed to be paying no attention. Which was, of course, a deception. Hawk paid attention to everything.

‘Second best suggestion,’ Walker said. ‘Don’t wait for them. Try to hit them first. I guarantee they’re coming.’

‘Been urging that same course of action,’ Hawk said.

‘You think Mary Lou might have killed her husband?’

‘No.’

‘She might have,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Who’s your candidate?’ I said.

‘If it wasn’t the Dell?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Might have been Ratliff.’

‘The producer?’

‘Yeah. He followed her out here.’

‘Why?’

Walker didn’t answer. He took a sip of his coffee, shook his head slightly and stirred more sugar into his cup.

‘Unrequited love?’ I said.

‘He had an affair with her in L.A. It didn’t mean anything. She and Steve were having a little trouble at the time.’

‘Last time I mentioned it,’ I said, ‘you said it was a lie.’

‘Did I say that?’

‘You did.’

‘Probably before I learned the truth.’

‘Probably.’

‘He was annoying her,’ Walker said. ‘She complained to me and I had a talk with him.’

‘What’d he say?’

Walker continued to stir his coffee. The gesture was automatic, as if he’d forgotten about it.

‘He admitted he followed her out here. Said he loved her. Said he just wanted to be near her.’

‘And you think he killed Buckman to clear the way for himself?’

‘Might have. Might have heard that the Dell threatened Steve, and saw his chance. Shoot him and the Dell gets blamed.’

‘It’s a theory,’ I said.

‘Yep.’

‘Mary Lou’s part of a group that’s buying up real estate,’ I said.

‘Good for her.’

‘Where’s she get the money?’

‘I look like H&R Block to you?’

‘I’ll take that to mean you don’t know where she got the money.’

‘You take it to mean whatever the fuck you want to,’ Walker said.

‘The mayor’s part of the group,’ I said, ‘and J. George Taylor.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Why do you suppose they’re doing that?’

‘Real estate’s cheap around here.’

‘Because of the Dell?’

‘Sure.’

‘So why does this group want it?’

‘Maybe they have confidence in you,’ Walker said.

‘Figure Potshot would boom without the Dell problem?’

Walker shook his head.

‘Not enough water,’ he said. ‘We’re at capacity.’

‘You ever sleep with Mary Lou?’ I said.

‘Hey,’ Walker said. ‘Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?’

‘Do you know who Morris Tannenbaum is?’

‘You think she slept with him?’

‘Do you?’

‘Watch your mouth pal. This is a lady you’re talking about.’

‘Nothin’ unladylike ’bout getting laid,’ Hawk said.

‘Do you know Tannenbaum?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘But you’re worried that Mary Lou might have slept with him?’

Walker stood up suddenly and picked up his hat and put it on.

‘Fuck this,’ he said and left.

‘Touchy,’ Hawk said.

‘On this subject.’

‘You think he might be right ’bout Ratliff?’

‘I think you’re right about the question of ladies and sex.’

‘Good to be right about something,’ Hawk said. ‘You think she connected with Tannenbaum?’

‘Everywhere I go in this thing I keep bumping into either her or him,’ I said.

‘Don’t mean they’re connected,’ Hawk said.

‘Ever since I signed on for this, I been trying to figure out where she’s getting the money.’

‘Tannenbaum got some,’ Hawk said.

‘He do,’ I said.

‘You got any ideas how to find out about him?’ Hawk said.

‘I do,’ I said.

I sat on the front porch with my Winchester rifle leaning against the porch railing beside me, and talked on the portable phone to Samuelson in L.A.

‘You got any surveillance on Tannenbaum?’ I said.

‘Me? No.’

‘Organized Crime Unit, maybe?’

‘Don’t know. Lemme call you back.’

I punched off, and sat and looked at the angular desert plants for a while. Up the hill from the house, with a view of the road, Bobby Horse was taking his turn with one of the little black-and-yellow walkie-talkies we’d bought. In the house Chollo had the other one. As Bernard J. Fortunato had explained, being murdered in our beds would suck. Peripherally I saw movement in the brush at the right corner of the house. I put down the cell phone and picked up the Winchester. A deer came delicately out from the cover, stopped short, and stared at me with its enormous dark eyes. I put the gun back down. The deer twitched its oversized ears a couple of times. I didn’t move. After more staring and twitching, the deer ate a leaf off of one of the dry desert plants, then did a big leap into the woods and vanished.

The portable phone rang. It was Samuelson.

‘OCU’s got nothing going on with Tannenbaum,’ he said. ‘But the Feds do.’

‘FBI?’

‘Yep.’

‘And?’

‘And they are not sharing it with us.’

‘Nice cooperation,’ I said. ‘You got anybody who’ll whisper it to you?’

‘Maybe, but then I got to whisper stuff to him.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I know a guy.’

‘I was sure you would,’ Samuelson said, and broke the connection.

I went in the house and looked up a number in my address book and came back out and sat and dialed it up. A man answered on the first ring.

‘Yes?’

I said, ‘Ives?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Spenser.’

There was a pause while Ives processed me through his memory banks.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Lochinvar.’

‘I need a favor,’ I said.

‘In which case you will then owe me one.’

‘There’s a guy named Morris Tannenbaum. Runs most of the rackets east of L.A.’

‘Really?’ Ives said.

‘The Bureau has surveillance on him,’ I said. ‘I need to talk with someone who has access to it.’

‘Our cousins at the Bureau are not usually forthcoming with surveillance data,’ Ives said.

‘Gimme a guy to talk with,’ I said.

I waited.

‘Wilbur,’ he said. ‘Wilbur Harris.’

I waited.

‘I’ll call Wilbur, give him a heads up on your behalf.’

‘Got the phone number?’

He gave it to me.

‘Call Wilbur in half an hour,’ Ives said, and broke the connection.

Bernard J. Fortunato came onto the porch carrying a street sweeper.

‘Lot of firepower for a guy your size,’ I said.

‘Fifty rounds of twelve-gauge shotgun shells,’ Bernard said. ‘Automatic. Vinnie showed me how to modify it.’

‘He show you how to hit what you shoot at?’ I said.

‘Already knew that,’ Bernard said.

‘I guess that thing makes accuracy less of an issue.’

‘You think I’m not accurate?’ Bernard said. ‘I’m accurate.’

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you shooting one of us with that thing.’

I was watching the brush where the deer had silently moved. There was always some sort of muffled visceral tug when I looked at a wild animal. I never really knew what the tug was. But I liked it when it happened.

‘You sure they’re going to come?’ Bernard said.

‘They’ll come.’

‘We backed them down pretty good in town,’ Bernard said.

‘There’s forty of them and seven of us,’ I said. ‘You think The Preacher doesn’t know that?’

‘So?’

‘So why fight us when the odds are even?’

‘Then why don’t we try what Bobby Horse says? Lock them up in the valley and shoot them from up above?’

I shook my head.

‘Lot of us think it’s the way to go,’ Bernard said.

‘I don’t,’ I said.