Текст книги "Potshot"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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Chapter 48

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 blond 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 Paglia."

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."

"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 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 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 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."

Chapter 49

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."

"So who benefits from that?" Hawk said.

"Anybody wants to pick up some nice bargains."

Hawk nodded.

"Wouldn't be the Dell," he said.

"They acquire it, the property values won't increase," I said.

"Less they targeting the ex-con market."

"Maybe they don't care about that," Sapp said. "Maybe they just like living off the carcass."

"If the town keeps declining," I said, "there won't be any carcass."

Hawk was nodding his head slowly.

"But if somebody picked up a lot of the real estate, and got rid of the Dell, then they make a big profit."

"She said even if it were good the town couldn't expand because of water limitations."

"But if somebody discovered a new water source?" Hawk said.

"Bonanza," I said.

"What'd Mary Lou Buckman used to do in L.A.?"

"Water resource specialist," I said.

"Fancy that," Hawk said.

Chapter 50

I WAS BACK in Cawley Dark's office with the airconditioning humming steadily. Dark had on a blue oxford shirt today. With him was a red-haired guy with a big Adam's apple.

"This is Ray Butler," Dark said. "He's the water resource guy for the county."

Butler and I shook hands. We sat in the two chairs facing Dark's desk.

"I told Ray about your situation down in Potshot. He was real impressed that I was doing legwork for a Boston shoo-fly."

"Me too," I said.

Dark leaned back and made a go-ahead gesture at me with his right hand.

"What's the water situation in Potshot?" I said to Butler.

"The Arapaho Aquifer," he said. "Extends from around Salt City in the Sawtooths, maybe eighty-five miles down through Potshot."

"An aquifer is like an underground river?" I said.

"More like an underground sponge," Butler said.

He had a high, sharp voice.

"Which holds water, and can be caused to yield it through wells or springs. The water seeps through pores and fractures in consolidated rock, or through spaces between the particles if it's unconsolidated."

"Thank you," I said.

Leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced over his flat stomach, Dark might have been in a reverie, except that there was a hint of amusement in the way his eyes moved.

"There are, of course, confined aquifers and unconfined aquifers."

"Of course," I said. "Is the Arapaho Aquifer sufficient to the needs of Potshot?"

"Barely," Butler said.

"Does that limit development?"

"Of course it does," Butler keened.

Talking to the likes of me was clearly painful for him.

"What would happen if the water consumption exceeded the capacity of the aquifer?"

"It could not recharge at a pace sufficient to the need."

Everything Butler said sounded like sort of a high-pitched protest.

"So they'd run out of water."

"That's what I just said."

"Is there any possibility that there is another aquifer?"

"Of course there is. It would be presumptuous to suggest that we know everything about the substrata."

"Presumptuous," I said. "Is it likely?"

Butler paused. How to say this to an unscientific moron?

"It's possible," he said finally.

"And if there were an increase in the amount of available water," I said. "Then I assume it would support increased development."

"It would make it possible," Butler said, "where, right now, it is not."

"Anybody been looking for water down there?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"In this environment, water is very precious," Butler said. "We cannot permit it to be exploited without supervision."

"So how would you know," I said.

"We'd know."

"How?"

Butler was silent. It was impossible that this rube had asked him a question he couldn't answer.

"Do you know how," I said to Dark.

Dark shook his head.

"There would be evidence of exploration," Butler said.

"When's the last time you looked?"

Again Butler was silent.

After awhile Dark said, "Well thank you very much, Ray, I don't believe we'll be needing anything else."

Butler stood and shook hands with me, sourly, I thought, and departed.

"Ray's never met a man he didn't like," Dark said.

"Be fun to drink beer with," I said.

"If you drank a real lot," Dark said.

"You able to get anyone to check the real estate?"

" 'Course I did," Dark said. "I'm the goddamned police."

"And?"

"And I had somebody go over to the county hall, like you wanted, and look up real estate transactions in and around Potshot. Here's a list."

Dark handed me the list.

"Recognize any names?" he said.

"Couple," I said. "Who's this Saguaro Development Associates?"

"Thought you'd ask me that," Dark said. He handed me another sheet. "Recognize any names?" he said.

"All of them," I said.

I took it and folded it over and tucked it in the inside pocket of my elegant toffee-colored summer silk tweed jacket, which I wore to conceal my somewhat less elegant, blue-barreled handgun.

Chapter 51

"We WALKED THROUGH it," Hawk said at breakfast. "Without the shotguns."

"Or the Heckler," Vinnie said.

"I have no shotgun," Chollo said.

"Artists are so self-absorbed," I said. "You see anything wrong with the plan?"

"It should be smooth," Hawk said. "Vinnie got a nice view of the street. We do it right we'll be right up against them 'fore they got any idea we there."

"I want to get a look at Pony," Tedy Sapp said.

"Be easy to spot him," Hawk said.

Sapp poured himself more coffee.

"For crissake, Tedy," Bernard said. "How many cups is that?"

"Six."

"Don't you get all jeeped up?" Bernard said.

"Sure," Tedy said. "It's why I drink it."

"You learn anything yesterday worth knowing?" Hawk said to me.

"Potshot can't get any bigger," I said. "Unless there's an additional source of water."

"Like somebody finds an underground river?" Hawk said.

I shook my head pityingly.

"It's a common misconception," I said, "that water flows underground like a river. Most aquifers are better thought of as a giant sponge, which holds the water. One such aquifer, the Arapaho Aquifer, supplies the water currently sustaining Potshot."

"Anglos are generally dull," Chollo said, "but you senor, you are truly so."

"So are there any other underground sponges beside the Arapaho thing?" Hawk said.

"My expert does not know, which makes him very unhappy, but he says it's possible."

"So if someone found one," Sapp said.

"And kept their mouth shut," Hawk said.

"And perhaps purchased some land, cheap?"

I took my list out of my pocket and spread it on the table. Beside it I put the list of names of people who comprised the Saguaro Development Associates.

Everybody looked at both papers while I waited, watching enviously as Sapp polished off his sixth cup of coffee.

"Appears that we employed by Saguaro Associates," Hawk said.

"J. George Taylor," Bernard read aloud. "Luther M. Barnes, Henry F. Brown, Roscoe B. Land, Mary Louise Allard."

"Read it again, Bernard," Tedy Sapp said. "It was like listening to music."

Bernard ignored Sapp.

"Who's this Mary Louise Allard?" he said.

"Our own Mary Lou," I said. "Allard is her maiden name."

Everyone was quiet for awhile.

Then Vinnie said, "So what the hell does that mean?"

"Means we're in the middle of some kind of very big swindle," Sapp said.

"So whose side are we on?" Chollo said.

"I'm not sure," I said.

Hawk said, "Preacher might know."

"Yeah," I said. "He might."

Chapter 52

HAWK AND I sat in the dark on the front porch of The Jack Rabbit Inn drinking coffee and waiting for the light. When it finally arrived it came slowly, from behind us, seeping up over the hotel until it splashed gray, barely perceptible, onto the street in front of us. Hawk poured some more coffee from the Thermos. On the street there was no movement beyond the pale creeping illumination of the morning.

"You figure The Preacher an early riser?" Hawk said.

"I wanted everything in place."

"That's for sure."

We sat some more, sipping the coffee, looking at the inactive town, waiting. A yellow cat eased across the street and disappeared down the alley to the left of Mary Lou's storefront. Somewhere from the rooftops we could hear the twitter of birds.

"You know this ain't the best way," Hawk said.

I didn't say anything. The coffee smell was strong and comforting in the unsullied morning air.

"Best way," Hawk said, just as if I'd asked him, "be to pen them into that canyon and shoot them from up above."

I nodded.

"You know that, well as I do," Hawk said.

I nodded.

"But we going to do it this way."

I nodded.

"Being your faithful Afro-American companion ain't the easiest thing I ever done."

"But think of the positive side," I said.

"Which is?"

"Lemme get back to you on that," I said.

The light had spread across the street and past Mary Lou's storefront. Behind it came sunshine, still weak, but tinged with color, and carrying with it the promise of heat. I could feel the tension begin to knot. Hawk showed nothing. I'd never seen him show anything. He'd been cool for so long that if there were something to show, he probably wouldn't know it. Hawk drank more coffee, looking out over the rim of the cup along the now bright street.

"Need donuts," Hawk said.

"Try not to think about it," I said.

A few people began to appear. There were a couple of fortyish women, in sneakers, shorts and tank tops power-walking on the sidewalk across the street. Some of the shops began to open. Doors were unlocked. Shades went up. Mary Lou, her hair held back by a blue-and-white polka dot headband, opened up on the other side. If she saw us she chose not to acknowledge it. In the hotel kitchen they were cooking bacon. The yellow cat reappeared, looking satisfied, and pattered down the sidewalk away from us, with his tail in the air.

"Bet he had a donut," Hawk said.

We were out of coffee. The street was bright now, and hot. Hawk seemed almost asleep in the chair beside me. His eyes were invisible behind his sunglasses, his gun concealed by a light silk warm-up jacket, the sleeves of which were tight over his upper arm.

Cars began to appear. More shops opened along the street. People spruced up for the morning walked past the hotel. Many of them trailed a hint of cologne and shampoo and shaving soap in the still air. One of Potshot's two police cruisers rolled slowly down toward the station.

Hawk watched it go by, his head turning slowly to follow it. Otherwise he was motionless.

"We follow that cruiser," he said, "we find donuts. Cops always know where there're donuts."

"Ever have a Krispy Kreme donut?" I said.

"No."

"Me either."

The sun had gotten high enough to shine straight into the windows of the shops across the street when they came. The old Scout was first, and even from a distance, as it turned into Main Street, I could see The Preacher, a contrast in pallor and black, sitting in front in the passenger seat. There were three other men, one of whom was almost certainly Pony, looming in the back seat, the Scout canted toward his side. Behind them came a ratty looking Jeep Wrangler that might once have been blue. There were four men in it.

"Maybe we can get a donut after," Hawk said.

He got up and took off his jacket. He was wearing his big.44 in a shoulder rig, and there was no further need to hide it. We walked across the street and stood in front of Mary Lou's store, Hawk on my left. The Preacher saw us and said something to the driver and he kept coming, and the second car followed, until he pulled up to a stop in front of us. The Preacher gestured and the two cars emptied, leaving only The Preacher and his driver still seated. Pony was in front of me. But he was aware of Hawk. I could see his eyes shift over and back. The others spread out around us in a semicircle. No one spoke. The Preacher seemed almost amused. Peripherally I could see Tedy Sapp's car move slowly in from the north end of the street, and Bobby Horse drive up from the south. Otherwise nothing moved in the street.

"So who are you," The Preacher said finally, "Wyatt fucking Earp?"

"I got some questions," I said.

The Preacher smiled.

"Pony," he said.

Pony took a step toward us and Hawk's gun barrel was suddenly pressed against his forehead. Guns came out all around us. The sound of hammers thumbed back was brisk in the hot silence. The Preacher showed no expression. Everything stopped stock-still. Behind The Preacher, to my left, Tedy Sapp was out of his car with his elbows resting on the hood and the shotgun leveled. To the right Bobby Horse was the same.

"The ball goes up," I said to Tedy Sapp, "kill The Preacher first."

My voice seemed blatant in the cavernous silence. The men in front of us glanced quickly around. Chollo walked out of the alley behind us, his Glock 9-millimeter handgun hanging loosely by his side.

"Let me kill him," Chollo said.

His voice was amplified by the silence as mine had been. Bernard J. Fortunato, with his shotgun at his shoulder, stepped out across the street. He didn't speak, but the shotgun was steady. From the secondfloor window of the hotel I heard Vinnie. I couldn't see him, but the barrel of the Heckler Koch was resting on the windowsill.

"No," Vinnie said. "Let me."

The silence seemed to twist and tighten. The frozen immobility of the scene seemed to squeeze in upon itself as though it would eventually shatter. I felt as if the pit of my stomach were clenched tike a fist. Fortunately I was brave, clean and reverent, otherwise I might have been a little scared.

"You got any preference?" I said to The Preacher.

"This all the people you got?" The Preacher said.

"All we need at the moment," I said. "You know a guy named Morris Tannenbaum?"

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. Decompensating. 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.