Valediction (17 page)

"He's lying," Sherry said, and her voice was a soft scream. "He made me help him. He has been dealing drugs for years."

"Paultz worked for him," I said.

"Yes. And when you forced him out, he made me work with him. He drugged me, he . . . he has power."

"You vicious little lying bitch," Winston said. There was something that looked like genuine horror in his face. Banks turned the gun toward him. "She's lying," Winston said. "She's lying. Yes, all right, I helped her. Yes, we were running heroin. But she was the one. It was her operation. I fronted for her."

Sherry said, "Kill him, Tommy, don't let him say those things. He's made me do awful things. Kill him, kill both of them and we'll go away."

I said, "Tommy."

Winston said, "See, she'll use anyone." His voice was up three octaves, it seemed, and it squeaked with terror and rage and franticness. "Don't let her use you. Don't do it for her, Banks. She's . . ." He groped for words. "She's satanic. She's . . ."

Banks shot him. Twice. It was a mistake. He should have shot me first. Sherry wrenched away from him and my bullet hit Tommy in the middle of the chest, and he fell over on his back and lay perfectly still. Winston was on the floor too. He had lurched back against the mirrors and left a long smear of blood on the mirrors as he slid to the floor. Both men were dead. You see enough of it, you know. I put my gun back into my jacket pocket. Sherry went to her knees beside Banks and as I walked toward her she picked up his gun and aimed it at me, holding it in both hands. Her face was puckered and intense. Like a schoolchild doing math.

I said, "Sherry. It's okay. It's over."

"Yes, it is, you motherfucker," she said. Her face still concentrated. "For you it's over."

"Winston was right," I said.

"I'm right," she said. "I'm the only one that knows."

"You wanted me to look for Tommy so you'd know what he was up to."

She smiled at me without losing her intensity.

"You simple tool," she said. "I've used you for anything I wanted to use you for and now I'm going to kill you and take all my money and go away."

"You killed Mickey," I said.

"Of course."

I began to walk toward her.

"Stay," she said.

I kept coming.

"I'm going to kill you," she said.

"So what," I said.

She fired and the slug hit me in the right side of the chest. Everything slowed down. I could feel myself rock back and then right myself and take another step. I watched her finger tighten on the trigger, watched the cylinder begin to rotate counterclockwise, saw the hammer rise and fall and saw the muzzle flash and felt another thump, lower on the right side, still. I could feel my life begin to slither out of me. The hammer started back again when I reached down and grasped the gun by the barrel and slowly pulled it away from her with my left hand. I took hold of her throat with my right and began to raise her from her knees. She was far away from me now, way out at the very end of my extended arm, the hand at the end of that arm tightening with infinite patience on her throat. There was a remote sound and Hawk glided into the room and took her away from my hand and bent liquidly over me. The light in the room was very clear and still. I was greatly distant from it now and everything looked as if it were being viewed at the bottom of a clear lake. Hawk leaned over me. I realized I was on the floor. He pressed his mouth against mine. And breathed. As he breathed he tore away my shirt. He'd be looking for the wound, and when he found it he'd need a compress of some kind. I wondered if it would work. Just curiosity. It didn't matter much. I couldn't see what he was doing anymore. I had slithered out entirely.

The lake was still and crystalline as I crossed it, and then became part of it so that the infinite clarity seemed to radiate from me and I could taste the brilliant stillness. Ahead was darkness. As I moved into it I noticed that there was scrub growth in parts of the oil field. When I was very close I could see them and see how the wind made their shapes contort as their branches moved restively, like animals too long restrained. Then I heard the shots. The sound sat on top of the wind the way a bird sits on a power line. I whirled, looking for a muzzle flash, and spotted some over to my left as more shots rode in on the wind. I ran toward them, my gun out. Two more shots. I banged into the superstructure of one of the pumps and spun around and staggered and kept my feet and kept going toward the spot where the memory of muzzle flash still vibrated in my mind. There was a brief flare of what must have been headlights swinging away, and then only the wind sound and the darkness. The wind had cooled, and there was thunder rolling to the west, and a new smell of rain in the air. I stopped for a moment and listened, staring toward the place where I'd seen the muzzle flashes and the headlights. Then lightning made a jagged flash, and I saw a car parked ahead of me. I moved toward it. I reached the car before the thunder caught up to the lightning.

The car was a five-year-old Plymouth Duster. It was empty. I listened and heard nothing but the wind. The lightning flashed again. In front of the car was a wide, cleared space, maybe for parking. I saw no people. The rain smell was stronger now, and the thunder came closer upon the lightning. The storm was moving fast. I opened the car door and reached in and, crouched behind the open door, I turned on the headlights.

Nothing happened. Nothing moved. I went flat on the ground, it was gravel, and looked underneath the car. Nothing. I got up carefully and moved out from the car in a crouch.

The headlights made a wide theatrical swash of visibility in the darkness. Twenty feet in front of the car was Franco Montenegro's body and next to him was Candy's.

I went down on my knees beside her, but she was dead, and I knew it even before I felt for a pulse and couldn't find it. She had taken a couple of bullets in the body. There was blood all over her front. Beside her on the ground her purse was open. The .32 was out. Unfired. She'd tried. Like I'd told her to. There was a small neat hole in her forehead from which a small trickle of dark blood traced across her forehead. I glanced at Franco. He had a similar hole. The last two shots I'd heard. The coup de grace, one for each. I sat back on my heels and stared at Candy. Despite the blood and the bullet hole she looked like she had. For something as large as it is, death doesn't look like much at first.

The lightning and the thunder were nearly simultaneous now, and small spatters of rain mixed with the wind. I looked at Franco. Near his right hand was a gun. I moved over and, without touching the gun, lowered myself in a kind of push-up and smelled the muzzle. No smell of gunfire. He lay on his stomach, his face turned to one side. Blood soaked the back of his shirt. With my jaw clamped tight I rolled him over. There was no blood in front. The bullet hadn't gone through. He'd been shot from behind. Candy had been shot from in front. I got up and walked maybe fifteen feet back from Franco's body. On the soft gravel of the parking area were bright brass casings. The shooter had used an automatic, probably a 9-millimeter. I walked back and looked down at Candy. The rain was beginning to fall steadily, slanted by the wind. Already some of the blood was turning pink with dilution.

I looked around the parking area. There was nothing to see. I looked at Candy again. There was nothing more to see there either. Still, I looked at her. The rain was hard now, and dense, washing down on her upturned face. The wind was warm no longer. Candy didn't care. My clothing was soaked, my hair plastered flat against my skull. Rain running off my forehead blurred my vision. Candy's mascara had run, streaking her face. I stared down as the rain washed it away too.

"Some bodyguard," I said.

We were quiet. The band on the roof was playing "Indian Summer." The smell of flowers seemed to have faded. The smell of Candy's perfume was stronger. My mouth was dry.

"Is dancing too systematic for you?" Candy said.

"No."

She got up and reached out toward me, and we began to dance, moving in a small circle on the narrow balcony, with the music drifting down. With her shoes off she was considerably smaller and her head reached only to my shoulder.

"Would you care to marry me?"

She was quiet. The water on the sound was quiet. Easy swells looking green and deep rolled in quietly toward us and broke gently onto the beach.

Susan said, "I don't know."

"I was under a different impression," I said.

"So was I."

"I was under the impression that you wanted to marry me and were angry that I had not yet asked."

"That was the impression I was under too," Susan said.

"Songs unheard are sweeter far," I said.

"No, it's not that, availability makes you no less lovable. It's . . . I don't know. Isn't that amazing. I think I wanted the assurance of your asking, more than I wanted the consummated fact."

I looked at Candy again. There was nothing more to see there either. Still, I looked down at her. The rain was hard now, and dense, washing down on her upturned face. The wind was warm no longer. Candy didn't care. My clothing was soaked, my hair plastered flat against my skull. Rain running off my forehead blurred my vision. Candy's mascara had run, streaking her face. I stared down as the rain washed it away too.

"Some bodyguard," I said.

I left her there in the rain with the headlights shining on her and walked back.

The still waters began to roil slightly. The pellucid silence began to clot. I became distinct from the lake.

"Human voices wake us," I said, "and we drown."

"What's he saying?" Linda said.

"He's still drunk from anesthesia," a nurse said.

"I want to get out of here," I said.

"How long will he babble like that?" Linda said.

"He's had a real jolt," the nurse said. "It will take a while. If you need me, ring that bell."

"How long have I been in here?" I said.

Linda patted my cheek. "Yes, honey, yes."

My right side felt as if it had been scraped raw. I put my left hand out to Linda. She smiled and took it.

"He's awake," she said.

"Alive," I said.

Linda leaned toward me, "What, love?"

"Alive," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Alive."

"Hot damn."

Linda leaned over and kissed me. "You are going to be fine," she said. "There's a policeman here."

I turned my head carefully. Frank Belson was sitting on the window ledge in his shirt sleeves, his gun butt forward on his belt, a cold cigar in his mouth.

"They won't let me smoke," he said.

"They spoil everything," I said. "How long I been here?"

I held Linda's hand as hard as I could. Which wasn't very hard.

"Three days," Linda said. "You had no pulse when they brought you in."

"They were worrying about brain death," Belson said, "but there was no way to tell."

"You're darling to wake up to, Frank."

"He's been here every day," Linda said. "He and another policeman and a man named Hawk."

"Quirk?" I said. Belson nodded.

"Marty's been curious about the three stiffs plus you." He grinned. "Almost four."

I nodded. The nod was a mistake. It made my whole right side hurt.

"We'll talk about it later," I said.

Belson said, "Sure."

"The girl dead too?"

"Yeah. Somebody broke her neck. Hawk brought you in." Belson chewed the cold cigar butt into a better position in his mouth. "Hawk don't shed a lot of light on things."

Linda's hand was motionless in mine. Her eyes were fixed on my face. This was the part she didn't like. The part Susan knew about and didn't like.

"You okay?" I said to Linda.

She took in a deep breath and let it out and nodded.

"Susan know?" I said.

"Paul was going to call her," Linda said. "Hawk said no. He said you'd decide when you woke up."

I was slipping again. Sleep would feel a lot better than my right side. I let myself sleep and in a little while my side stopped hurting. I could feel Linda's hand in mine a long time after my side stopped hurting, well after I was otherwise asleep.

The next time I woke up Linda was gone and so was Belson. Hawk was there and Paul. As I came out of the sleep I heard Paul's voice, softly.

"No, like this, shuffle, ball, change. You see, shuffle, ball, change." I heard his feet move lightly on the hospital floor. "How can a man with your heritage not be able to tap-dance." I heard Hawk's gliding chuckle. "My ancestors busy eating missionaries, boy. We didn't have no time for no fucking shuffle ball change."

"Well, you wanted me to show you."

"That's before I knew you was going to do it better than me," Hawk said.

"Hey," I said, "Heckle and Jeckle. Don't you realize there's a wounded man in here?"

They appeared at the foot of the bed. Paul said, "How do you feel?"

"Pretty good, I think. Where's Linda?"

"Home, asleep," Hawk said. "She about ready to fall over."

"How long have I been sleeping?" I said.

"Day and a half," Paul said. "You woke up yesterday morning."

"How bad am I?" I said to Hawk.

"This the Easter season for you, babe," Hawk said. "You was dead when we brought you in."

"I know, Belson told me."

"But you gonna make it."

I looked at Paul. He nodded. "You were in surgery for fifteen hours," he said. "You got a drain in your right side."

I nodded very carefully. "I figured that was what that was."

And then I faded out again. And woke up in daylight again with a frizz-headed doctor looking at me.

"I just want you to know," I said, "that I'm opposed to socialized medicine."

"Me too," he said. "My name is McCafferty, I did most of the work on your thoracic cavity when they brought you in here."

"Too late now, but I think my health insurance lapsed," I said.

He smiled. "We'll find a way," he said. "Do you want the details of what happened to you medically?"

"Sure."

"First, I've never seen anyone as dead as you were come back. You are one tough specimen."