Sixkill (21 page)

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Authors: Robert B Parker

BOOK: Sixkill

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"Odd," I said.

"The barriers?" Z said.

"Yeah. Usually there's a cop."

I looked up at the Arlington Street end. More barriers.

"Odder," I said.

"Street's one-way," Z said.

I nodded.

"Might be nothing," I said.

"Might not," Z said.

"Might be something," I said.

Z didn't say anything.

"Okay," I said. "I'll hang here. You go out the front door, turn right up to Arlington, and right again to that end of the alley. When I see you at that end, I'll step out."

"And?"

"And we'll see," I said.

Z turned and went up the three steps to the first floor and disappeared. I stayed where I was. Halfway up the alley was a white Ford van with tinted windows. If there was something, I was betting the van contained it. Ordinary-looking. Couldn't see in. Plenty of room for four or five guys and their weapons. Since the visit from Alice DeLauria, I had been wearing my S&W .40. I took it out and cocked it, and held it at my side. It took Z maybe ninety seconds to scoot around to the Arlington end of the alley. When I saw him, I stepped out of the doorway and began to walk toward him. He strolled toward me. The side doors of the van opened.

Bingo!

Four guys got out. None of them seemed to notice Z. One guy had a shotgun. I shot him in the chest. He stepped back, half turned, and fell with the shotgun underneath him. I ducked between two cars, and several bullets ripped into them. Z's .357 boomed, and a second shooter went down. Face-forward. One of the remaining two spun toward Z, and I shot him from behind the car. The last guy threw his gun on the street and turned and ran.

Z reached me.

"You want him?" Z said.

"You think you can catch him?" I said.

"The Cree named Z," he said. "All-American."

"Go," I said.

From a standing start, Z exploded down the alley. He'd been outrunning me in our interval training for several weeks. But this was like seeing some kind of different species. Z caught the shooter before he got to Arlington Street. He hit him in the back of the head with a forearm and the man went face-forward onto the ground. Z got hold of his collar and dragged him to his feet. And they came down the alley together more slowly than they'd gone up. I could hear sirens.

"Put the gun down on the ground," I said to Z. "Don't want the cops to shoot us while they are protecting and serving."

Without letting go of the collar of the guy he'd caught, Z put the .357 on the street. I put my .40 beside it. From Berkeley Street, a police cruiser came rolling through the barrels without even slowing; another came down the alley from Arlington Street, showing equal contempt for the barrels. Both cars stopped maybe ten feet short of us, and cops got out, shielding themselves with the open door, guns leveled at us.

"Put your weapons on the ground," one cop shouted. "Slowly."

I pointed at the guns on the ground.

"They're down," I said.

Two more cruisers showed up.

"Okay," the talking cop said. "Now you. On the ground, facedown, hands behind your heads."

Z frowned.

"Do it," I said.

We got down as instructed.

"You guys ever gonna forget the Little Big Horn?" Z said.

IT WAS LATE,
and the crowd in my office had cleared. The stiffs in the alley had been taken away. The survivor had been hauled off, too, and only Quirk remained. We were having a drink.

"Sorry it took so long," Quirk said.

"Always does," I said.

"Coulda taken longer," Quirk said.

"I know that, too," I said.

Quirk nodded and rattled the ice around in his glass and sipped some scotch.

"Slug you didn't shoot is Warren Carmichael," he said. "We've known him for years. Says he was hired by one of the shooters, now deceased. Guy with a shotgun: Squirrel Rezendes. Warren says he doesn't know why they were gonna hit you, or who hired Rezendes."

"And Rezendes, being dead, can't tell us more," I said.

"Yeah," Quirk said. "Nice going."

"Sorry," I said. "I was just trying to keep him from killing me."

"Sure," Quirk said. "It's always about you, isn't it."

"Who hired me in the first place?" I said.

"Price was right," Quirk said, and looked at Z.

"How about you," he said. "What do you get out of this?"

Z sipped his scotch.

"Squaw, two ponies," Z said.

Quirk looked at me.

"Who knew he was funny," Quirk said.

"Surprise to me," I said.

"Indians are always amusing," Z said.

"Sure," Quirk said. "What do you figure Jumbo's owners will do now that they've fanned twice."

"If at first you don't succeed," I said.

"Think they'll hire local talent again?" Quirk said.

"That hasn't worked out well for them," I said.

"They haven't hired wisely," Quirk said. "The business with the traffic barrels. Talk about overthinking something . . ."

"They'll send Stephano," Z said.

Quirk and I both looked at him. He sipped his scotch.

"Stephano DeLauria," I said.

"Alice's husband," Z said. "Nicky Fellscroft's enforcer."

"You know him?" I said.

"I've seen him," Z said. "And I've heard about him."

"I'm told he's good," I said.

"Hall of fame," Z said. "Like a man playing with boys."

"Like us," I said.

"Maybe better," Z said.

"I'll see what I can learn about Stephano," Quirk said.

"I'll make a call, too," I said.

Quirk nodded. He looked at Z again.

"Why are you so sure?" Quirk said.

"Been with Jumbo for a while. Pay attention. Everybody got a lot of faith in Stephano, and everybody scared of him."

"But you're willing to go up against him," Quirk said.

"Oh, sure," Z said. "Indians are always optimistic."

"And with so little reason," Quirk said.

"If you're right," I said to Z, "he may bring others."

"So did Custer," Z said.

"I DON'T THINK
he's changed," Susan said. "You know him better than I do, but I think he has gotten rid of a lot of stuff that wasn't really Zebulon Sixkill."

"How'd he do that?" I said.

"He seems finally to have someone he can emulate," Susan said.

It was Sunday morning, and we were having a breakfast that extended into the afternoon.

"Me?" I said.

"You," Susan said.

She had drunk a small fruit smoothie, which had brought her past noon, and was now eating a single soft-boiled egg, with whole-wheat toast, which would probably take her to mid-afternoon.

"Well, who wouldn't emulate me?" I said.

"Everyone at Harvard," Susan said.

"Oh, them," I said.

"Z is, from my admittedly limited vantage, becoming more like you every day," Susan said. "Which suggests to me that he was probably a good deal like you to start with."

"Big and handsome, with a magnificent physique?" I said.

"Sure," Susan said. "It may be why he came to you in the first place."

"Because he was like me?"

"Because at some unconscious level, he may have sensed that he might be," Susan said.

"Think maybe that might be why I took him on?"

"Yes," Susan said.

"Seeing beyond the magnificent-physique similarities," I said.

Susan nodded.

"He did well at the shoot-out," she said.

"Just fine," I said.

She nodded.

"And so did you," she said.

"Good as ever," I said.

"In neither case was that because of how you looked," Susan said.

"Who you are is not always how you look?" I said.

"Not usually," Susan said.

"You look like a hot Jewess," I said.

"I'm the exception," she said.

"I'll say."

"Perhaps the booze and the broads and the bully-boy posture are all a kind of costume. If he learns what you know, and behaves as you behave, then it allows him to slough off the costume."

"So I haven't helped him change as much as I've helped him get out."

"Might be the case," Susan said.

"You Ph.D.'s," I said.

Susan smiled.

"We both spend our professional lives mucking around in the human condition," she said. "There is very little in there to be dogmatic about."

"I know," I said.

"Have a drink after the shooting?" Susan said.

"Quirk, Z, and I had two scotches each in my office, after everything was over with."

"He seem to want more?" Susan said.

"Hell," I said. "I wanted more."

"But you didn't have any," Susan said.

"No."

"I wonder if he did?"

"Did he go back to his room at Henry's gym and drag a bottle out from under the mattress?"

I shrugged.

"No way to know," I said.

Susan nodded.

"And if he did," I said, "nothing to be done."

"No," Susan said. "He has to do it himself, but if you matter enough, you may be able to help him simply by mattering. For what it's worth, I'm betting he didn't."

"I think he can do it," I said.

"Do you think he's right about Stephano Whatsisname?"

"Need to be ready for it, at least," I said.

"Have you talked with Mr. del Rio about him?" Susan said.

"I thought I'd do that tonight."

She stuck a piece of toast into her soft-boiled egg and bit off a corner.

"Good," Susan said.

"I KNOW OF NO ONE
in Los Angeles who does not fear Stephano DeLauria," del Rio said on the phone when I finally got through.

He paused for a moment. I waited. The way he paused, I knew it wasn't my turn yet.

"Except Chollo," del Rio said. "To the best of what I know, Chollo isn't afraid of anything."

"If it gives him trouble, he assumes he can shoot it," I said.

"Exactly," del Rio said.

"And Bobby Horse?" I said.

"On his own," del Rio said, "yes, Bobby Horse would be cautious of Stephano. But with Chollo . . . He would go with Chollo into a working volcano."

"And you?" I said.

"I fear my wife," del Rio said. "Everything else Chollo and Bobby Horse take care of."

"So tell me about DeLauria," I said.

"He is an excellent hand fighter, a fine shot with handguns and long weapons. He is skilled with explosives. He is expert with a knife. Even a cudgel."

"Cudgel?" I said.

"I have worked very hard all my life to perfect my English," del Rio said.

"Lot of people have those skills," I said. "What makes Stephano especially fearsome?"

"His willingness," del Rio said. "He has been known, without malice, to kill a man, his wife, children, and dog."

"To make a point?" I said. "Or just because they were there?"

"Either," del Rio said.

"It doesn't bother him," I said.

"I believe he likes it," del Rio said.

"A skilled sadist," I said. "Who's found a profession suited to him."

"Yes," del Rio said. "Oddly, he seems devoted to his wife, and is thus entirely loyal to her father."

"Nicky Fellscroft," I said.

"Yes."