Текст книги "Chance"

Автор книги: Robert B. Parker

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CHAPTER 51

We waited. The near midday sun baked down on the gravel lot. A big maroon rental car crunched into the gravel area in front of the restaurant. It stopped out of sight. I could hear the doors open and close and then the crunch of footsteps and Marty Anaheim came around the corner of the restaurant wearing a white linen suit over a black tank top. With him was a fat Mexican in a flowered shirt and a funny small hat. Bibi was stone silent beside me. Anthony was moaning softly.

"Marty, you stylish bastard," I said.

"Love your tank."

Marty and the Mexican kept walking straight toward us, without saying a word. This was calculated to make me feel faint. It wasn't working with me, but it seemed effective with Anthony. Finally they stopped about two feet away. The Mexican moved a little ways to my right. He had small eyes and they had no expression in them.

"Who's this," I said and nodded at the Mexican, "a leaner from the local guys?"

Marty ignored me. He stared straight at Bibi.

"When this is over, little girl, you're coming with me."

She didn't say anything. Marty looked at Anthony.

"And you're dead," he said.

Then he turned his attention, almost as if it were an afterthought, to me.

"Okay, asshole," Marty said.

"Whaddya want?"

"I want to wrap this whole deal up, Marty."

"What deal?"

"The deal where you steal from Gino and kill Julius's daughter, and get into bed with the Russians in Boston, and have them try to whack me, and… you know, that deal."

Marty never blinked.

"And what are these two shit birds doing here?" he said.

"I knew you were looking for them," I said.

"I brought them so you'd come."

"My God," Bibi said, "you used us for bait."

Marty looked at her for the first time.

"Hard world, ain't it, baby."

Bibi didn't answer. I could feel the weight of the sun on my back.

"So what's your deal?" Marty said to me.

"I'll get to the deal in a minute," I said.

"But I need a couple answers."

"You need a lot of things, asshole."

"It started," I said, "with Anthony here, skimming a little off the accounts he serviced for Gino. And you caught him, because Anthony's dumber than a rake handle, but instead of closing him down, you turned him, had him skimming from Gino and Julius and splitting the dough with you."

Marty nodded slightly. The small dry wind drifted across the lot and made a feeble attempt at ruffling Marty's hair.

"And while you had him in pocket, you had him spy on Julius."

"Not just him," Marty said.

"Julius's daughter. She was a dumb quiff but she was smarter than Anthony."

"And when Anthony took off on you both, you became allies.

Which is how you knew we were looking for him out here."

Marty shook his head in disbelief.

"She wanted him back, for cris sake "And you wanted him dead, and she knew it. So she came out here to make sure you didn't hurt him."

Marty laughed. There was no pleasure in the laugh, only scorn.

Scorn might be the only thing Marty had ever really felt.

"And you killed her," I said.

"You beat her up and raped her and strangled her and dumped her body with no ID right over there."

Marty shrugged.

"You got some kind a question you're asking or do you just like to flap your face?"

"Did you beat her up and rape her just to throw the cops off, or was it recreational?" I said.

"That your question?"

"One of them," I said.

Marty grinned. It was an expression as scornful as the laugh had sounded.

"Both," he said.

"What I figured," I said.

"Got any other questions?"

"How come you set the Russians on me?"

"What makes you think it was me."

"Joe Broz told me."

For a moment Marty was startled. It was a brief slip and then he got the scorn back in place.

"So?"

"So, why?"

"Why do you think? You're all over my business. You're looking into Asshole Anthony, and you're looking for Bibi, and you're talking to the niggers, Gino and Julius and Fast Eddie. You're in the way. And you don't even fucking know what you're in the way of. A cheap fucking nickel-and-dime goddamned gumshoe poking around into something he couldn't understand if he found it, for cris sake "Something really big, huh?"

"Bigger than you could handle, cheapie."

"Taking over the town, huh?"

"For starters, cheapie, just for starters."

"Today, Boston," I said.

"Tomorrow the world."

"You think it's funny?"

"So far," I said, "all you've had to do is run Anthony and your wife, and you're oh for two on that. The Russians would feed you through a compactor an hour after you all took over."

"You think so?"

"Doesn't matter," I said.

"I'm not going to let it happen anyway."

"You?" Marty laughed again. It sounded like claws on a tin roof.

"Spenser, you fucking kill me, you know it. You going to stop me.

You, asshole? You just delivered me the three people on the fucking planet I want to kill most."

"Killing isn't comparative," I said.

"I think you mean the three people you most want to kill."

Marty ignored me.

"And you don't even know what you've fucking walked into, for cris sake "Marty, you're not saying you set us up?" I said.

"Asshole!"

"You don't mean you sent some people down here ahead of time," I said.

Marty frowned slightly.

"I'm shocked," I said.

"Shocked."

The Mexican didn't move, but I could sense a tightness in him that hadn't been there before.

Without taking his eyes off me, Marty yelled, "Paulie."

The door to the utility shed opened and two guys came out. One of them was leaning heavily on the other one. There was blood on his face. Hawk came out of the shed behind them. He held a big stainless-steel finish.44 Magnum loosely at his side, the barrel pointed aimlessly at the ground.

"One over behind the fence," Hawk said.

"In the weeds."

His teeth flashed very white as he grinned at the Mexican.

"Hasta la vista," he said.

"Deceit breeds deceit," I said to Marty.

"Hawk came down here, before I called you."

Beside me Anthony said, "Shoot him. You got to shoot him quick while you have the chance."

Nobody paid any attention to him.

The Mexican's small eyes shifted from Hawk to Marty to me and back to Hawk. He gave Marty one more brief sidelong glance and then turned without a word and walked back toward the street.

Marty looked after him for a moment. Beside me I felt Anthony start to take a step, and I put my hand out and gripped his arm. I shook my head. He froze.

"Hard to get good help out here," I said.

Marty shifted his gaze back at me. He glanced at Hawk standing behind the two gunmen. In the background I heard the rental car start up and the gravel scatter as it drove away.

"Okay," Marty said.

"This is the way I like it, anyway. It's down to you and me, ain't it."

"Appears so," I said.

"You got a deal, or what?"

"Couple things," I said.

"Like what?"

I said to Bibi, "This guy used to beat you up?"

"Yes," she said.

Her voice was so soft and flat it was almost inaudible.

I said to Marty, "You killed my client, Shirley."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I said and hit him a short left hook that landed under his right eye.

Beside me I heard Bibi gasp.

I hit him the same left hook again and a straight left on the nose. Blood started. Marty clubbed at me with his right. I took the hit mostly on the left shoulder and upper arm, but even so it rocked me and my arm hurt. I circled him a little, moving toward his left, and popped in the straight left on his nose again. He bulled inside the punch and grabbed me around the waist and lifted me in the air. I brought both fists simultaneously together on each side of his head, just in front of his ears. He grunted and staggered, still holding onto me, and turned his hip and slammed me onto the ground. I landed on my back and as he came down on top of me I doubled my knee and he fell on it, and slid sideways, to my right, while I rolled sideways to my left, and onto my feet.

He scrambled onto his hands and knees and started to lunge at me and I kicked him in the head. It knocked him sideways and he went back down, landing on his right side, scrabbling away from me even as he landed. I waited. I could hear somebody's breath rasping in and out, and realized it was mine. Sweat was soaking my shirt and running down my face and arms. My hands were slippery with it, and Marty's blood. The desert seemed to have focused down to Marty and me. He got to his feet. I hit him again the straight left. He grabbed at my arm and missed, and I came in over his left shoulder with an overhand right that caught him under the left eye. I saw his knees buckle. He was still fighting but he was pawing at me. I slapped his left hand away and rolled in a right cross with all of me behind it and he went down. I waited. He got up and rushed in low at me, his head down. I kneed him in the face and he fell forward, trying to hang onto my legs as he went down. I stepped away from him and waited. He lay for a minute facedown on the hot gravel, and then he pushed himself up slowly like a man doing his hundredth push-up. I waited. He got his knees under him. Then his feet. Then he stood. Upright, but wobbly. His left eye was closed. Blood ran down his face and the front of his shirt was covered with it. I waited. He took a step toward me and pitched forward and lay motionless, facedown on the ground.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. The traffic went slowly by on the Strip and more distantly, and much faster, behind us, on Route 15. Bibi stepped over next to Marty and quite deliberately kicked him in the side of the head. Then she turned and looked at me.

"You used me," she said, "as bait."

"Some," I said.

"But you make a nice witness, too. You heard him say he killed Shirley."

"You better kill him," Anthony said.

"While we got the chance.

You wouldn't get in trouble. We'd all say it was self-defense."

I looked at him without saying anything. He turned toward Hawk.

"Do it," Anthony said.

"Do it now, nobody'll say anything. Shoot those two guys too, if you're worried."

Hawk looked silently at Anthony for a minute and then looked at me.

"Old Marty didn't quit," Hawk said.

"I'll give him that."

"Even if I was just a witness," Bibi said. The soft flat voice was shaking a little.

"You still used me. You think it was right to use me?"

"It was necessary," I said.

"And it worked. Sometimes I have to settle for that."

"You shouldn't have used me," she said.

CHAPTER 52

It was November and while it hadn't snowed yet, it was cold out.

Susan and I were sitting with Pearl the Wonder Dog between us on the couch in front of a fire in the kitchen of the nearly finished house we'd been working on in Concord. We had been sitting side by side, on the couch, with the potential for necking, but Pearl had weaseled herself in between us and the necking remained potential.

"The DNA match between Marty and the sperm he left in Shirley sort of settled it for him," I said.

"Were the police grateful?" Susan said.

"For cops," I said.

"Romero let Bibi walk without a word."

"How about Anthony Meeker."

"The little bastard," I said.

"He caused the whole damned mess in the first place. Starting with when he married Shirley to get at Julius's money."

"But they haven't got a crime they can convict him of?"

Pearl leaned heavily against me, and gave me a wide rough wet lap on my cheek.

"She loves her daddy," Susan said.

"She also loves where the gravel scrape is healing," I said.

"No.

He hasn't done anything they can catch him for. But Romero said they could hold him a few days as a material witness before they turned him loose. And I took the liberty of letting Julius know where he is."

Susan sat back a little and looked at me.

"God, sometimes even I forget how hard a man you are."

"He married an emotional cripple and exploited her and got her killed," I said.

"He left Bibi broke in Vegas and took off with the money that was supposed to be their start-over cash."

Pearl gave me another lap.

"Besides," I said, "I like dogs."

"So did Hitler," Susan said.

I eased Pearl away from me and got up. Pearl immediately transferred her weight to Susan. I put a couple more logs in the fireplace and went to the stove and opened the oven. There were yellow eye beans baking in an old-fashioned brown and tan pot. I put a pan of corn bread batter in to bake beside them. Then I got some Iron Horse champagne out of the refrigerator and two glasses and brought them back to the couch.

"What about the mob takeover business in Boston?" Susan said.

"Don't know," I said.

"Read that Tarone Jessup got killed, and a couple weeks later I read that two Russian immigrants from New York got dumped on Blue Hill Ave. Probably means that Tony Marcus has got to risk a tougher caretaker until he gets out."

"Do you think the Russians can do it?"

"They've got to form an alliance," I said, "with Julius, or Gino, or Fast Eddie Lee. After the fiasco with Marty, I don't think it's going to happen."

"What's going to happen to Marty?"

"Once they get wind of his connection with the Russians, I think platoons of feds will head for Nevada to see what kind of deal they can make with him to help them with the Russians."

"Would it be bad if the Russians succeeded? If they, what?

Took over organized crime in Boston."

I shrugged.

"Too big an issue for me," I said.

"I work on a smaller scale."

"Who killed Shirley Ventura," Susan said.

"Yeah."

"How to save Bibi Anaheim."

"She's gone back to using her maiden name," I said.

"Costa."

"Have you ever thought about what would have happened if you and Hawk had failed."

"Yeah."

"She was right," Susan said.

"You did use her."

"I know."

"Even though it was in her best interest."

"I know."

"You should have found another way."

"I know."

"If you had it to do over again you'd do the same thing," Susan said.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah."

Susan smiled at me and drank some of her champagne. Incredibly, Pearl had found a way to lie down and stretch out fully on the couch between us. This left us less room than one would have hoped for, at opposite ends of the couch. The fire had fully involved the new logs I'd put on, and the flicker of it on the dark windows made the room seem nearly antic. I tasted my champagne. It was very cold, as it should be, and the bite of it was clean on the back of my mouth.

"You don't always do the right thing," Susan said.

"True," I said.

"But you get as close as you can," she said.

The fireplace hissed as sap boiled out one end of a log. The log settled a little deeper into the flames.

"What are we having with the beans and corn bread?"

"I got four venison chops," I said.

"They've been marinating in red wine and rosemary."

"Dessert?"

"Bread pudding with whisky sauce."

"God," Susan said.

"I won't be able to walk."

"How about other activity."

"Anything prone is fine," Susan said.

"My feelings exactly."

"Good," Susan said.

"What happened to Bibi."

"She said she was going back to Fairhaven," I said.

"With her old name," Susan said.

"Starting over."

"Who was it who said there are no second acts in American life," I said.

"I don't know," Susan said.

"But he or she was wrong. You might recall that we're in act two ourselves."

"I remember."

"She's been abused. She needs help," Susan said.

"I suggested that. She said she wasn't interested. I gave her your phone number anyway, and said you might be useful."

"If she calls, I can get her a referral down there," Susan said.

"I'm too tied to you to help her myself."

"Good to know," I said.

"She may not call," Susan said.

I shrugged.

"She isn't able to know yet," Susan said, "how much you helped her. She's got too much history weighing on her, and all she remembers is you used her to get Marty."

"I know," I said.

"She may know some day," Susan said.

"Doesn't matter," I said.

Susan got up and walked around the couch. Pearl immediately expanded into the vacant area. Susan sat on the arm of the couch and put her arm around my shoulder and laid her cheek at the top of my head.

"Yes, it does," she said.

Robert B. Parker was born in 1932 and has a PhD from Boston University. He has been Professor of English at Northeastern University, Massachusetts, teaching courses in American literature, and has written several textbooks.

He has written many bestsellers, including All Our Yesterdays and his recent Spenser novels Walking Shadow and Thin Air.

The End

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