He Was Her Man (35 page)

*

Sam could hardly take her eyes off Harry, she simply couldn’t believe that he was standing there, but Jack kept tapping her on the hand. “Look!” he said, pointing out the window. “Jinx’s doing it! Watch, watch, look, hon, there’s the switch. See, just like Mickey told her, she tossed him the envelope with the fake money and the bag with Jethro’s phony diamond, and now she’s crossing the street. Here she comes. She’ll be through the back door in half a minute. God, she must be pumped; she’s gonna be screaming! Yes!” Jack slapped a palm down on the table, and his coffee cup jumped.

“Sammy,” Harry said. “Sammy, I need to talk with you.
Now
.”

“Wait a minute.” Sam still watching Doc, waved one hand behind her. “Just a minute.” Then to Jack, “Oh, God, is he going to look inside? What if he looks inside?”

“He’s won’t. Trust me. He’s fallen for it hard, just like a rube would, because he
wanted
to believe it. He doesn’t have a clue that Jethro replaced Little Doc with one of his fabulous fakes back in the shoestore.”

Sam rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait to hear Loydell describe the look on his face when she handed him his own diamond and he thought he had twin Little Docs.”

“Twin fakes.” Jack laughed. “Jinx just passed him another one, now the man’s got two magnificent chunks of cubic zirconia, one in his heel, one right there on his car seat, and we’ve got Little Doc and his ten thousand! God, I love it!”

Harry said, “I’ve come a long way to talk with you, babe.”

At that, Jack slowly turned and gave Harry a lengthy look, starting with his worn-out running shoes, up his tattered jeans, took in his faded red-and-white polo shirt, his long curls, about a month past needing a trim, and said, “Son, if you’re calling this woman babe, you wait right here. When I finish with that son of a bitch out there, I’ll come back and attend to you.” With that, Jack stood, picked up the Colt, gave it a gunslinger twirl, stuffed it into his belt, and pushed past Harry.

*

What the hell? The woman
was
stupid. Or was she? Now that Doc thought about it, what she’d done was save herself the bruising she’d have gotten when he shoved her out of the moving Mercury and, well, face it, who knows what else? Whatever it’d take for Doc to make his getaway.

He leaned into the Mercury and snatched up the envelope and the jeweler’s bag and stuffed them both in his jacket pocket. Killing Jack was going to take only a minute, but there was no point in taking chances. Tourist town like Hot Springs, there were always thieves.

He relocked the car, straightened up, and stared at Bubbles across the street. He’d waited for this moment for a long time. Too long. He patted the Hardballer .45 stuffed in his belt. He took a deep breath. Then Doc counted, one, two, three, and started his slow march across the street.

*

“Jack!” Sam screamed. She was watching Jack, watching Doc, watching Jack. The restaurant had gone deathly quiet. It was like a freeze-frame in the movies. Everyone still. All eyes on her. “Jack, don’t do it! Stop!”

Jack, who was halfway to the front door, paused next to a service station filled with chrome pitchers of ice water, cream, sugar substitutes, pickled peppers, quart bottles of tabasco sauce. His body stayed in place as his handsome silver head turned. He spoke softly from the side of his mouth, “He killed Olive, Sammy. Choked that sweet old lady dead.”

“Let the cops deal with it, babe.” She heard a small moan behind her at the
babe.
Harry. She shook her head. Not now. She couldn’t deal with Harry now.

“And Speed. You know he killed Speed.”

“It’s their job, Jack. The cops’ job.”

“He murdered Lush Life. Remember that sweet filly, Sammy? You saw her. Such a pretty girl. Such a beauty.”

“Hey,
I
remember that.” That was Harry. He was right. He’d been there, too, at the New Orleans track, with Sam on his arm.

“He butchered my dogs, Sammy. He cut their heads off. He strung their guts around my yard like popcorn.”

“Oh, babe.”

“Early can tell you. Early saw them.”

Now there was a thought. “Where is Early, Jack?”

“Early,” Harry breathed. “Early Trulove, he’s a friend of Lavert’s. So who’s
this
guy?”

“He’s locked in my office downstairs. I didn’t want Early to get into this.”

“Jack, you’ve got to give this up,” Sam pleaded. “It’s nuts.”

“Sweet pie, it’ll be over before you can blink.” Jack turned and stared out the window at the approaching Doc Miller. Then he stepped toward the door.

*

Doc placed his right foot onto the bottom of the Quapaw’s steps. A little breeze ruffled the blue awnings. The sun was behind the building, in his eyes. He couldn’t see into the big windows. But he knew Jack Graham was waiting for him in there. Jack, who’d humiliated him in front of all those tough guys. They’d laughed and called him names he still didn’t like to think about, they made him feel so small. Made his guts curl. Then they’d turned their backs like he was a cat or a coon or something dead by the side of the road. Squashed and sticky and black and already stinking.

That’s how he was going to leave Jack.

He took the next three steps in one swift glide and laid his hand on the brass door handle. Jack Graham was waiting for him, somewhere on the other side of the door’s etched glass panel. Doc pulled the Hardballer from his belt.

*

“Jack! Jack! Stop!” Sam screamed.

But he didn’t stop. He laid his hand on the brass door handle. He stood squarely in front of the etched glass panel. He pulled the Colt from his belt. He pushed his thumb on the big brass tongue of the door’s release. The door opened slowly. One inch. Two.

And then Harry Zack—the Fastest White Boy in the South, they’d called him, not to mention the only white boy at Grambling State where he’d won a three-year track scholarship—took a running leap and tackled Jack Graham, hitting him right behind the knees. Then the
crrrrack
of a gunshot filled the silent room, and the big man crumpled backwards atop Harry. They crashed to the floor.

“No!” Sam wailed. “No, no, no!”

*

What the fuck? said Doc. The etched glass panel in the door shattered into a thousand pieces that held together, just like a windshield that’d been hit by gravel. Though that was no rock that made that sound. Doc knew the sound of a gunshot, but he hadn’t fired. Then he looked down and realized that, Shit! He’d been hit—not by any piece of flying glass, either. He’d taken a slug. And he was bleeding bad.

Doc turned tail and ran toward the Mercury.

*

“Are you hurt?” Sam was on her knees.

“No!” snapped Jack.

“Are
you
hurt?”

“I think my leg’s busted. Could you get this big old guy off of me?”

“Who the fuck are you calling old?”

They were okay. Sam stood and leaned across her two lovers and pushed the front door wide. She watched Doc unlock the dark blue Mercury with his right hand. His left was hanging at his side, blood dripping down the fingers. There was a trail of red, bloody spatters from the front step all along the sidewalk. Then it disappeared as Doc had crossed the dark pavement of Central.

He was in the car now. He’d slammed the door. In a second he’d start the engine, and he’d be gone. They had his money and his diamond, but still, Doc Miller would be on the road. On the loose. Free to kill again with no one to stop him. Sam whirled, stepped around Jack and Harry, and ran back through the restaurant and up the stairs.

*

“
Oooooooowrunuhooooo,” said Pearl sniffing the blood on the sidewalk. Then she looked back up at Bobby, searching his eyes, waiting for him to tell her what to do.

“Take this, too,” Sam pressed all the cash she had in her wallet into Bobby’s hand. They turned right when they hit the main sidewalk, about to head up toward the Palace Hotel and the parking lot and Sam’s car. Across the street was an empty parking spot where Doc’s Mercury had stood.

Pearl stopped. “Hooh hooh hooh,” she cried, lurching toward the parking spot.

“The son of a bitch is going to have a fifteen-minute lead by the time we get your car and I head out after him,” Bobby said. His face was white. His mouth was grim. Maybe they had conned the con man, thought Sam, but
this
was the man to kill the killer.

She said, “What else can we do? Let’s go!” She took off jogging, with Bobby and Pearl right behind her.

Then a car horn sounded, and they turned. It was Loydell peering at them over the steering wheel of her ice-blue Chevette. “Where are you two racing off to? I gave up on waiting for Jinx to call me and tell me how it all turned out, thought I’d come down here and find you all.…”

“Miss Loydell,” Bobby breathed, leaning on the side of the Chevette. “I need you to give me your car right now. The man who killed Mamaw has just drove off that way”—he pointed south down Central—“and I hate to be rude, but Pearl and I don’t have time to stand around and chitchat.”

Loydell didn’t even blink. She just slid over into the passenger seat and said, “Son, you drive. Pearl can sit on me.”

Bobby climbed into the Chevette. “Miss Loydell, I don’t think you under—”

“I am just old, Bobby. I am not stupid.” She reached over and opened the glove compartment and pulled out her little .22 Jaguar Baretta. “Now hit it, son. The murdering bastard may run, but he can’t hide from us. Can he, Pearl?”

“Yo yo yo yo,” Pearl sang as if they’d already treed Doc and she was on chop, waiting for Bobby to blast his lights out.

Then Bobby did a smoking U-turn in the middle of Central Avenue, and he and Pearl and Loydell headed south. Sam waved them off. “Good hunting,” she cried into the clear blue Arkansas afternoon.

37

“THIS CERTAINLY IS beautiful country,” said Mickey. The baby blue Mercedes she’d picked up at Hot Springs Classic Cars was cruising along Highway 270 past the western fingers of Lake Ouachita. They were about to enter the little town of Mount Ida.

“Isn’t it pretty?” said Jinx. “You’ve never been here before? Well, just you wait until we turn up toward Fort Smith. That national forest up there is so beautiful. You know, we could keep going, on up toward Fayetteville, do a little turn back east and you could see Eureka Springs. It is so
cute
up in the Ozarks. They have all these darling bed and breakfasts in Eureka Springs.…”

“Jinx,” Mickey interrupted. “Sweetie, I think we need to keep our eye on the prize here. Now, we’ve got the nest egg, we need to get a good running start on making you a crystal altar queen in L.A. We should get there and get started. You want to do sight-seeing, well, darlin’, we can do some sight-seeing. We’ll see London. We’ll see France.”

“We’ll buy lots of lacy underpants.” Jinx giggled.

Mickey turned and looked at her. Who’d ever thought that the main chance would come in the form of a dingbat ex-beauty queen with one of the greatest legal scams in the world, who didn’t know it? And who was also a natural talent?

“I’m telling you, darlin’,” Mickey said, pushing the button that opened the sunroof. The wind rushed through their hair. Mickey’s red curls looked like little pennants, bouncing around. “We’re going to be rich. Rolling in filthy lucre. That crystal altar idea of yours, we take it to Hollywood, unh unh unh. You think those bored-to-death rich ladies in Texas are foolish, can spend some money, honey, you haven’t seen
anything
until you’ve seen yourself some Hollywooders. That place is absolutely crawling with people so insecure, so nervous, so unhappy about one-half a pound of fat, one-quarter of a wrinkle, and that’s just the actors. Then you take the agents and the producers and, my God, the
writers
everybody else treats like pond scum—those people need your help so bad. We’re going to be bigger than Marianne Williamson. We’re going to start small and exclusive, and then we’ll branch until we’re into television home shopping. With you up front and me behind the scenes, we’re going to be colossal! Mega-colossal! And, furthermore, we’re going to be legal!” Mickey reached over with her right arm and gave Jinx a hug. “You are one smart lady, Miss Jinx. God, I love you, you did such a beautiful job faking out that s.o.b., then faking out everybody else.”

Smart.
Mickey thought she was smart. Jinx sighed. God, she was happy. She couldn’t remember ever being so happy. Then she slid down in the leather seat, propped her knees on the dash, and screamed through the sunroof: “Brace yourself, Hollywood!”

38

EARLY THE NEXT afternoon, Sam and Kitty were sitting on Sam’s front porch. Snuggled between them on the wide slatted swing was Harpo, Sam’s little dog, whom Kitty had brought home to Sam from her grandmother’s.

“So then what happened?” asked Kitty.

“After I waved Bobby and Loydell off? I turned and walked weak-kneed back into Bubbles.” Sam took a long sip of her iced tea. “You want some more?”