Potshot (6 page)

Susan shook her head
.

You don’t cheat on someone you love?

No
.

Ratliff was from L.A. Lou and Steve Buckman were from L.A. I wonder where Walker’s from? Nobody’s from Potshot. Except maybe somebody from the Dell. I’ve got plenty of time to think about it. Bebe didn’t look like she was going to wake up soon, and when she does, I don’t want to be in the room. Bebe is a single-minded woman.

Yes
.

I drank a little more beer, carefully. In a town where I had annoyed nearly everyone, including the leader of a large gang of vicious thugs, I thought it unwise to get rolling drunk.

Maybe I should confront Lou with the allegations. What does that get me. She’ll deny them and I still won’t know whether they’re true.

Un-huh
.

And if she’s conning me than I’ve given away that I know it and my chances of figuring out the con are reduced.

Un-huh
.

So maybe pretty soon I should go to L.A. and look into these people a little. And maybe Susan should come with me.

Maybe
.

And in the meantime, I got nothing else to do except sit around and see what develops. What if I went up and lay down on the bed with Bebe for a while.

Maybe not
.

It was too soon to go back to my room. Bebe would still be there asleep. I wondered if she’d remember anything when she woke up. Maybe she’d think we had in fact done the deed, and would look on me fondly next time we met. I went out and sat in a straight chair on the front porch of The Jack Rabbit Inn with one foot against a post, balancing my chair on its back legs, feeling like Henry Fonda in
My Darling Clementine
. I was alone. A cheery male weather weenie on television had said that the temperature was 108. People in shorts and sunglasses glanced at me in puzzlement as they moved quickly in and out of air-conditioned stores. A lot of them wore big hats. The Potshot police cruiser with two of Dean Walker’s four cops in it was idling in front of the hotel.

An old International Harvester Scout with no top came noisily down Main Street past me and rolled to a stop in front of the store where Lou Buckman ran her excursion business. The Preacher was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. The patrol car slipped into gear and moved away. There were two guys in the back seat of the Scout. If any of them noticed me sitting on the porch like Wyatt Earp, they didn’t show it. What’s the point of sitting like Wyatt Earp in 108-degree heat if no one pays any attention? When the car stopped, one of the guys in the back – a tall guy with shoulder-length hair, who looked sort of like Ichabod Crane – swung a leg over the side and jumped out as agilely as if he didn’t look like Ichabod. He went into Lou Buckman’s store and came out in a short time holding Lou by the arm. I let my chair fall forward and stood and walked toward them. We all reached the topless Scout at the same time.

The Preacher saw me coming and watched me, I think, through black sunglasses until I reached the car.

‘Spenser,’ he said.

‘Preacher.’

‘Mrs Buckman been making contributions to the Dell,’ he said.

I could barely hear him. The tall guy let go of Lou Buckman and shifted his ground a little. The second rider was sitting with one foot on the console between the front seats. He was wearing motorcycle boots, and a knife was stuck in the top of the left one, which would make him left-handed. He wasn’t as tall as I am, but he was wider, an obvious bodybuilder, wearing a sweaty-looking orange T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His head was shaved. He had prison tattoos on both forearms. The driver was Mexican, clean-shaven and smooth-looking. They both appeared bored with the whole scene.

‘And she’s delinquent?’ I said.

‘Delinquent,’ The Preacher said.

He did his soft little snarly laugh.

‘That’s what she is,’ he said. ‘She’s fucking de-lin-quent.’

‘And this is small-claims court?’ I said.

The Preacher looked at the men with him.

‘Small-claims court,’ he murmured. ‘That’s a good one, isn’t it?’

The other men nodded. I looked at Lou Buckman.

‘You want to pay them the money, Lou?’

‘I want these men to leave me alone,’ she said.

I nodded.

‘Want to got nothing to do with it,’ The Preacher said.

I nodded again. Taciturn. Everybody was quiet.

‘You’re going to interfere,’ The Preacher mumbled. ‘Ain’t you?’

‘Yep.’

The Preacher jerked his head at Ichabod and Ichabod kicked me in the hip. He would have kicked me in the groin had I not moved my groin out of the way. It made me stagger back a couple of steps, and Ichabod jumped in swinging. He was strong the way some of those tall, bony guys are strong. And he was pretty good. He put out a nice stiff left, which he planned to follow with a right cross. I slipped to the left, which threw him off enough so that I could step inside the right cross and get a handful of his hair. I pulled his head forward and broke his nose with my head. Still holding his hair in one hand, I got my other hand into his crotch and put my shoulder into him and lifted him off the ground and slammed him down on the hood of the truck. He grunted, and went limp. When I stood back, he slowly slid off the hood and lay in the street with his mouth open. I turned to meet the bodybuilder who had scrambled out of the back seat. He had the knife out of his boot top, holding it low in his left hand. He was stronger than Ichabod. And he had a knife. I moved away from him. The Preacher was watching with no expression. The Mexican still looked bored. He started toward me. I had my gun in an ankle holster, but I didn’t want to start shooting in the middle of the street if I didn’t have to. I took another step back, and slid my belt out of my pant loops. It was a wide leather belt with a big buckle. I had a momentary vision of my pants falling down, and me winning the fight when everyone fell down laughing. I looped it around my left hand so that the buckle end swung loose. Almost gently the body builder made a pass at me with the knife. It was big, like a Bowie knife. I hit him in the wrist just above the knife with the belt buckle and he made kind of a yelp. I swung the belt buckle backhand and hit him in the face with it. He yelped again, and put his right hand up to shield himself and lunged at me with the knife. I jumped back. He came up short, he lunged again and I kicked him in the groin. He was not as alert as I had been. He didn’t move his groin behind his hip. He howled this time, and doubled over. I grabbed the knife arm and pulled it toward me and stepped under it and twisted it up behind his back. I gave his shoulder a wrench and the knife fell from his hand and landed dully on the soft asphalt. I shoved him away from me and he staggered and stood bent over with his hands between his thighs, next to Ichabod. I spun away from him, moving to my right, looking for the Mexican. He was still sitting, still bored, except that he was pointing a big revolver with a long barrel at me. I stopped. I didn’t see Lou. The Preacher was watching me the way you might watch an unusual lizard. On the sidewalks on both sides of the street, people had stopped to stare. They stood in little groupings, some of them sheltering behind whatever they could shelter behind, in case things got to flying around. There were faces in the store windows, and down the street I could see Lou walking toward us with Dean Walker.

‘Shoot him?’ the Mexican said.

The Preacher was silent for a moment.

‘Lemme think,’ he said.

Walker left Lou Buckman on the sidewalk and stepped into the street.

‘You’re under arrest,’ he said to me.

The Preacher said, ‘Walker?’

‘I assume these gentlemen wish to press charges,’ Walker said.

The Mexican rested the long-barreled handgun in his lap, still pointed at me. The Preacher looked at Walker and me. On the street Ichabod was sitting up, and The Bodybuilder had gotten to his knees. The Mexican looked at The Preacher. The Preacher said something I couldn’t hear and gestured forward with his chin. The Mexican put the gun down, put the truck in gear, and drove away.

I sat in Dean Walker’s cool office with him and Lou Buckman.

‘Well,’ Walker said, ‘We’ve given them enough time. I guess they’re not going to pursue assault charges.’

I said, ‘Whew!’

‘So I guess I can’t hold you.’

‘I don’t know why you arrested him anyway,’ Lou said. ‘He was just trying to protect me.’

Walker nodded.

‘That’s sort of my job,’ he said.

‘Well isn’t it your job to arrest that Preacher?’

‘For what?’

‘For having Steve killed.’

‘I got no evidence, Lou.’

‘Because you’re afraid to look for it.’

‘Or because there isn’t any.’

‘You didn’t seem so worried about that when you arrested a man who wasn’t doing anything wrong.’

‘Lou,’ I said. ‘He arrested me to keep me from getting shot by The Preacher’s driver.’

She sat for a moment without doing anything. Then she opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything.

‘That’s Spenser’s theory,’ Walker said.

Lou stood up suddenly and stalked from the office. Walker watched her go. She would have slammed the door except that it was on a pneumatic closer and she couldn’t. When she was gone and the door had closed, Walker and I looked at each other. Neither of us spoke for a time.

Then Walker said, ‘You’re free to go.’

So I went.

I pushed through the heat, back up Main Street, toward my hotel.

The day after I had my first fight with the Dell, I came into the lobby of The Jack Rabbit Inn, and J. George Taylor was standing near the front desk, talking with the bell captain. J. George was one of those guys that would bend whatever ear was closest. J. George spotted me as soon as I entered. I wondered if he was going to challenge me to a duel.

‘Spenser. Can I buy you a drink?’

Apparently not.

‘Sure,’ I said.

He clapped the bell captain on the shoulder and led me into the bar. The bartender nodded at me without expression as we went by. In a booth on the back wall of the bar was a round table. Three men were sitting with drinks and a basket of tortilla chips. J. George introduced me as though I were meeting the leaders of the free world.

‘This is Roscoe Land, our esteemed mayor. This is Luther Barnes, who serves as city attorney, and this is Henry Brown, who ramrods The Foot Hills Bank and Trust.’

I shook hands all around and sat. The cocktail waitress appeared. She was dressed like Dale Evans.

‘What are you drinking?’ the mayor said to me.

He was a tall, flabby guy with rimless glasses and a gray crew cut that wasn’t cut short enough.

‘Beer,’ I said.

‘Beer, Margie, and,’ he made a circular gesture at the table, ‘and hit the rest of us one more time.’

Margie cantered away.

‘I gotta tell you,’ the mayor said. ‘We liked what you did out there.’

‘We having a victory celebration?’ I said.

‘Well,’ the mayor laughed, though not like he meant it. ‘You might say so. You are one tough cookie.’

‘That would be me,’ I said.

Margie came back with drinks and set them out. While she was at the table nobody spoke. When she left the mayor looked after her.

He said, ‘That little girl’s got a hell of a butt, doesn’t she?’

I heard Luther Barnes inhale as though his patience was being tried. He was a young-looking guy with gray hair, and thick eyebrows. His face was one of those pale English-ancestery faces that would never tan. The closest he had gotten was a mild sunburn.

‘Could we get to it, Roscoe?’ he said.

Very businesslike. He’d been to law school, and he wasn’t a man to waste time chitchatting.

‘Oh throttle it back, Luther,’ the mayor said. ‘No reason not to talk a little before you make someone an offer.’

Barnes nodded and tightened his mouth and looked at Henry Brown and rolled his eyes.

‘The thing is,’ Brown said, ‘after what we’ve seen of you in action, we think you might be able to help us solve a problem.’

I waited.

‘This is an affluent town, and we have access to a considerable amount of money.’

‘Isn’t that nice?’ I said.

‘It might be nice for you,’ Brown said. ‘You know who those people were that you tangled with today?’

‘I know The Preacher,’ I said.

‘So you know about the Dell?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those men were from the Dell.’

‘I sort of intuited that,’ I said. ‘Years of training.’

Brown shifted gears a little.

‘You’re here looking into Steve Buckman’s death.’

I smiled helpfully.

‘The prevailing theory is that he was killed by the Dell,’ Brown said. ‘Because he refused to pay them off.’

‘I’ve heard that,’ I said.

‘The Dell is a cancer on this town.’

‘I’ve heard, too.’

‘They intimidate our police. They extort money from our businesses. They frighten the citizens. They come in here, everywhere, and run up a bill and leave without paying. Their presence is destroying our businesses, which depend largely on people coming here for the desert air. Our real estate values are nonexistent. We have complained to the police. They are either afraid or corrupt. I would guess both. In any case, they do nothing. The Sheriff’s Department has sent investigators, but witnesses are intimidated, and no one can make a case. And frankly, I’m not sure we are the sheriff’s top priority. Many natives look at us as a bunch of yuppie intruders.’

‘Incredible,’ I said.

‘You’re not too talkative, are you?’ Luther Barnes said.

‘I’m a good listener,’ I said. ‘And a very good dancer, too.’

Barnes frowned.

‘Well when you do talk,’ he said, ‘must you be a wiseacre?’

‘I fight it all the time,’ I said. ‘Was there something you wanted me to do for you?’

‘We’d like you to rid us of the Dell,’ Barnes said.

‘You mind if I freshen up a bit first?’ I said.

‘Damn it, this is serious,’ Barnes said.

‘I’ll say.’

‘We don’t expect you to do it alone. We are prepared to provide funds for you to hire a band of mercenaries, as many as you need, to clean out the Dell.’