The Man Who Risked His Partner

  In fact, you probably wouldn’t use a rifle at all. There were four of us in the room, and you would want to take us all out at once. And that would make it even more important to get the glass out of the way first.

  While we stared like paralytics at the brick, and shards of cold made moaning noises past the ragged edges of the window, a hand grenade took a casual flip through the opening, hit the carpet, and rolled to a stop in front of Haskell.

  We could all see as plain as the glass glittering in the nap of the carpet that the pin and the handle were gone.

  An old army surplus grenade, the kind you can order with a coupon from Soldier of Fortune. Despite its age, however, it would be powerful enough to gut the room. And that many screaming steel fragments would do a nice job on the four of us.

  Ginny recovered first. She barked, “Move!” in a voice that went through all my muscles like a jolt of electricity.

  I moved.

  Like we’d been practicing it for months, she bent down and shoved her forearms under the edge of the couch while I reached for Haskell.

  My part was easy. Under the circumstances, he didn’t feel particularly heavy. In one motion, I latched onto his shoulders and heaved him over the back of the couch.

  He hit the wall pretty hard, but I didn’t waste time worrying about that.

  Ginny had a tougher assignment. And apparently she’d forgotten that she only had one hand. She didn’t brace herself right for the leverage she needed. With both forearms under the edge of the couch, she jerked upward—

  —and her left arm slipped free. She lost her balance, stumbled backward. Hit the wall about the same time Haskell did, and almost as hard.

  Those old grenades give you seven seconds before they tear you to pieces. I didn’t know how much time I had left, and I didn’t care. What difference would it make? I still had to take my best shot, beat the detonation if I could.

  Jamming my hands under the couch, I pitched it forward, shoved it upside down on top of the grenade.

  The grenade went off.

  It made a muffled crumpling noise like popping a paper bag underwater. The couch burst stuffing at the ceiling. I felt the shock of the explosion and did my best to fall backward, away from it. Wood and cloth went to shreds. Metal springs twanged like tortured rebar. The walls spit chips everywhere.

  But the couch absorbed enough of the blast.

  As I landed on the floor, silence clapped back through the room. The innards of the couch seemed to geyser everywhere, obscuring the hole in the window so that I couldn’t see out—and whoever was out there couldn’t see in.

  Haskell lay against the wall, his eyes wide. Across the room, Canthorpe gaped at the couch like he was about to throw up. He was the only one of us on his feet.

  Ginny knelt near me, bracing herself with her good arm. She didn’t seem aware of anything around her. As hard as she could, she slammed her stump against the wall.

  Again. And again.

  “Damn this thing,” she panted. “Damn it. Damn it.”

  First things first.

  “Canthorpe,” I said. A lunatic calm possessed me. My voice was quiet and conversational, crazy in the aftermath of the grenade. “Get the lights.”

  Something in my tone got his attention. He moved toward the switches. His path kept him out of the field of fire.

  I turned to Ginny. “Stop it. I need you. Get your gun.”

  The stuffing settled like snow in the center of the room. When Canthorpe reached the switches, the lights went out.

  Ginny stopped.

  “Don’t move,” I breathed to Haskell and Canthorpe. “Don’t say anything. He knows this is a trap.”

  Ditching the lights was a gamble. It warned whoever was out there. But it also evened the odds. I got up on my knees, snatched the .45.

  “But he might come in after us anyway.”

  Ginny crawled past me in the dark, then paused.

  I thought I heard someone start up the hill in the narrow lane between the privacy wall and the side of the house.

  That made sense. Circle around, take us from behind. I headed for the stairs, hoping to cut him off.

  Behind me, Ginny whispered hoarsely, “Brew! Wait for me.”

  She reached the stairs a few steps after I did.

  We’d left the atrium and entryway lights on. I didn’t even think about turning them off. I didn’t want the man outside to know where we were.

  Near the top of the stairs, I tightened my grip on the .45 and stopped. If I were him, I might try to break in through the living room window, on ground level before the hill sloped down toward the arroyo. It wasn’t exposed to the outside lights of the house and the street. And the atrium lit the doorway to the living room but left the window dark. He could watch for us—and we would have a hard time surprising him.

  Avoiding the line of the light, so that my shadow didn’t touch the doorway into the living room, I left the stairs and moved to stand beside the door frame.

  Ginny followed, her face as pale as bone. A smear of blood oozed from abrasions on her stump. Behind her clenched teeth, she looked like she was hyperventilating.

  I waited for the sound of breaking glass. We’d left all the windows locked. The goon would knock in one pane to reach the latch. Or he would just crash through the window.

  He didn’t. I heard nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a car out on the street.

  I was wrong. He wasn’t coming in this way. Then where? Where were the other windows on this level?

  “Shit,” I sighed to Ginny through my teeth. “The bedroom.”

  Just to be on the safe side, I jumped in front of the doorway to the living room, leading with the .45—reassuring myself that the window was closed and intact.

  It wasn’t. Nothing was broken. But it was wide open.

  Before I could react, he came out at me. While I turned toward him, he hammered me in the chest with the butt of his rifle. I went down like I’d been kicked by a horse.

  No way to defend myself. My lungs felt like they’d been nailed to the floor. Somewhere on the other side of a wall of pain, my arm struggled to do something with the .45. But my muscles might as well have been cut. I couldn’t even raise my hand. All I could do was watch him raise the M-16 to swing it again. This time it would crush my skull.

  “Don’t do it!” Ginny yelled. She sounded wild.

  So wild that Novick froze in mid-swing.

  Her .357 jutted right into his face. From that range, the muzzle must’ve looked like the snout of a howitzer.

  His hands made twitching movements toward his belt. Maybe he wanted the knife sheathed on his left hip, maybe one of the grenades clipped on the other side.

  She rasped, “I mean it. I’ve killed people this way before.”

  Somewhere under the dope or fever in his eyes, his instinct for survival still functioned. Slowly he pulled his hands back until his weapons were out of reach.

  Somehow I took a breath. After a minute or so, I figured out how to move again.

  18

  By the time I got to my feet, I was starting to think maybe Novick had cracked a couple of ribs, and Haskell and Canthorpe stood near the head of the stairs, staring. For different reasons, they both looked like kids—Canthorpe because he had that kind of face, Haskell because this was probably as close as he’d ever been to a real live game of cops-and-robbers. Just judging by appearances, neither of them could’ve possibly had anything to do with Mase Novick, with his tattoos and his murderous cornered-animal expression. Or with Ginny either, for that matter, who looked like a whiskey bottle with the bottom broken out of it, ready to slash in any direction.

  “Who is he?” Canthorpe asked softly.

  “Cover him,” she panted at me. She was breathing hard—too hard. Her aim at Novick wobbled perilously.

  Despite the stress on my chest, I pulled up the .45. Directing the muzzle at Novick’s guts, I said tightly, “I hope you try something.” My voice sounded like it had to squ
eeze its way through a pile of rocks. “I’d love to get even.”

  Ginny sagged a bit. But she didn’t lower her gun. “Haskell,” she said as if she were fighting suffocation, “get some rope.”

  He nodded. Glad to participate.

  As soon as Haskell crossed the atrium and entered the garage, she turned her .357 on Jordan Canthorpe.

  “Don’t move.” She was practically gasping. “Don’t talk. Don’t think. You’ve already had your chance.”

  His face went wide. His mouth gaped open. All the color ran out of his skin. Completely innocent. Or surprised as hell to get caught.

  Two things went through my head like ricochets. Either she was wrong. Or Haskell had lied to us again.

  Wait a minute, I wanted to say. Let’s think this through. But Ginny was in no condition to hear me. Her teeth clenched at the air as if that were all that kept her from passing out. The lines of her face looked too sharp. I forced myself to concentrate on Novick.

  In a tone of demented detachment, I advised him to lie down with his nose in the carpet. Canthorpe tried to find his voice, but Ginny’s white grip on the .357 stopped him. By the time I had Novick stretched out the way I wanted him, Haskell came back with a coil of clothesline.

  When he saw what was going on, he stopped. “Jordan?” Then he wheeled on Ginny. “Fistoulari, what the hell are you doing?”

  Keeping the .45 aimed at Novick’s spine, I went over to Haskell and took the rope. “If I were you, Reg”—a bit of friendly advice—“I would keep my mouth shut for a while. No one here gives a flying fuck at the moon for your opinion.” Then I went back to Novick.

  With one knee, I pinned him while I lashed his wrists together. “Asshole,” he rasped at me. “Motherfucker.” A lick on the side of the head with the .45 shut him up. Just to be on the safe side, I tied his wrists to his ankles, bowing his back until his shoulders looked like they might separate.

  “Now him,” Ginny panted. The barrel of the .357 indicated Canthorpe.

  Oh, good. If you have to go off the deep end, you might as well go all the way.

  “Ms. Fistoulari, I don’t know what you think I’ve done”—Canthorpe sounded steadier than I expected—“but you’re wrong. I don’t even know who this man is.”

  “Now him,” she repeated through her teeth. “Come on, Brew.”

  I didn’t argue. I wasn’t ready. My chest hurt, and cold air from the windows only made it worse. In some sense, I was responsible for what had happened. I was the one who stirred up Novick’s beehive brain. So I did what she told me.

  Canthorpe gave me a glare of outrage and appeal, but he didn’t resist. Soon I had him trussed up, too—like Novick, but not as hard.

  That gave Ginny a respite of some kind. She lowered her gun. Taking a deep breath, she held it until she could stop panting. With her sore stump, she wiped her face. Sweat streaked the hair on either side of her face. Her eyes were out of focus—relieved and lost.

  I knew what was coming, but I didn’t know how to deal with it. Trying to postpone it, I went into the living room and snapped on the lights to see how Novick had gotten in.

  The window was open all the way. The damage around the latch suggested that the window had been forced with the blade of a knife. A heavy-duty knife, like the one Novick carried.

  That should’ve made enough noise to warn me. Therefore Novick must’ve reached the house ahead of Ginny and Canthorpe. Maybe they arrived just when he’d started to break in. Interrupted him. But then they went down to the den. Presumably he followed to keep an eye on them, leaving the window open in case he needed it.

  Ginny had been so close to the edge—not to mention fixed on what Canthorpe was saying—that she’d never thought to check the house.

  When I returned to the atrium, I found her sitting on the floor, her gun in front of her. Haskell watched her as if he expected her to begin singing Christmas carols. Canthorpe muttered over and over again. “You are out of your mind, Ms. Fistoulari. You are out of your mind.” She didn’t look at either of them.

  As soon as I rejoined her, she said, “Call the police, Brew.”

  She didn’t look at me, either.

  “Ginny.” There was no good way to say it. “Maybe we should go over this once or twice. I’m not sure we’ve got it right.”

  “I said, call the police.” Her voice was acid. “This bastard almost broke you in half. He threw a hand grenade at us. How innocent do you think he’s likely to be?”

  “More than you do, anyway,” I retorted. I wasn’t primarily interested in Novick. Nevertheless, the whole situation hinged on him.

  “I don’t care.” Her hand curled into a fist. “I’m not going to tell you again. Call the police.”

  That probably wasn’t a bad idea as far as it went. And it might leave me time to talk her out of giving Canthorpe grounds to sue us. I said, “You’re the boss,” and went back into the living room to use the phone.

  I called Detective-Lieutenant Acton. By now I’d stretched the favor he owed us pretty thin, but I thought I could count on him to hear what we had to say before he jumped to any conclusions. Maybe he’d even forgive me for getting him in trouble with Cason.

  He had a voice like the exhaust of a Peterbilt, and when he got on the line he tried to tear my ear off with it. I let the first couple of blasts go by, then told him enough to get his attention. Finally he snarled, “All right, all right. I’m on my way. Give me half an hour.

  “But when I get there, you damn well better be ready to tell me the whole story. You hear me, Axbrewder? The whole story.”

  I said, “Sure,” and hung up.

  While I was on the phone, I heard Canthorpe and Haskell talking to Ginny, but they stopped when I reappeared. Haskell had moved closer to her. The excitement was gone from his face—he looked unnaturally serious. Canthorpe had squirmed himself into a position that let him keep an eye on her.

  Novick lay where he was, muttering to himself. Ginny still sat on the floor, her back against the wall beside the doorway to the living room. She kept running her fingers through her hair, trying to pull it back from her face.

  Softly I said, “Acton’s on the way.”

  She ignored that. “Want to hear something crazy, Brew? Our client wants us to believe Canthorpe is innocent. Novick just tried to kill him, and Canthorpe knew about Novick and Harmon, and he has the only real motive in this whole mess, and our client still wants us to believe his boss didn’t sic Novick on him.”

  “It’s true,” Canthorpe protested. “I swear it.” Her attitude scared him worse than being tied up.

  But she dismissed him with a humorless snort. “Our client,” she went on, “just can’t bear it that we’ve caught him lying again. All that bullshit about being involved with Roscoe Chavez. He’s just been trying to make himself feel important. As if anybody other than a jilted fiancé would consider him worth threatening. As I remember, our client didn’t even know the name ‘el Señor’ until he heard it from us. He probably got ‘Roscoe Chavez’ out of the newspaper.”

  “Damn it, Fitoulari.” Haskell was angry now—or faking it well. “I’m not that stupid. Nobody is dumb enough to invent trouble like this. I’m good at games, but that’s all they are, games. I wouldn’t lie about something this serious.

  “Until tonight I wanted to manipulate you. I admit it. But I didn’t know how much I could trust you. I didn’t want to tell you what I’d done. I was afraid you might turn me in. But now I’ve told you the truth. You’re looking in the wrong direction. El Senor is trying to kill me. Because Roscoe and I ripped him off.

  “I don’t care about motive. Jordan is not the kind of man who would try to have anybody killed, for any reason.”

  She ignored him. “I’ll tell you something, Brew.” She sounded like she wanted to laugh and couldn’t pull it off. “I’ve had enough. I’m getting out of this business. As soon as the cops get here, this case is closed. I’m going to quit. Find some other line of work.” Maybe inste
ad of laughing what she wanted to do was cry. “I can’t take any more of this shit.”

  “Ginny.” I had to stop her somehow. She was going to break my heart. “We’ve got to think this through. Before Acton gets here. It isn’t as simple as it looks.”

  She didn’t even glance up at me. For a long moment she didn’t say anything. Then her voice came past the edge of her hair like a flick of hate. “Mick Axbrewder, what in hell are you talking about?”

  Sweet Christ on a stick. This was going to be such fun.

  As steadily as I could, I said, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you about my evening yet.”

  “What’s to tell?” She really didn’t want to hear it. “You went to talk to Eunice Wint. You took your precious time, but it didn’t get you anywhere. You blew it somehow. If you’d pushed her, she would’ve told you enough to convict her fiancé. But she’s pretty and stupid, so you felt sorry for her. You don’t have to tell me about it. I’m not interested.”

  “I can see that,” I snarled. I’d lost my balance. Now I was just unbalanced. “But you ought to be. You ought to know by now that it doesn’t take all evening for a girl like Eunice to make me feel sorry for her. What do you suppose I did with the rest of the time?”

  Bitterly she said, “I’m afraid to ask.”

  I bent over Novick and turned him so that I could see his face. I was rougher than I meant to be. When I was done, pain glared in his eyes. “Pendejo,” he hissed. “You’re tearing my arms out.” But I ignored his distress. I just wanted to be able to watch his expression.

  “Before Haskell and I talked to Eunice.” I said to Ginny, “we went to Novick’s house. The house he shares with Gail Harmon. We took her and checked her into a hospital.”

  That didn’t hit Novick for a second or two. Pain and craziness made him slow. Then a spasm of fury convulsed his face. “Bastard!” he coughed. “Fucker!” All his muscles corded, trying to break the clothesline. “Cocksucker! You took my woman? My woman? I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you.” I thought he was going to froth at the mouth.