The Man Who Risked His Partner

  Sure I would.

  Cason wasn’t. Or he had some other reason for letting us go.

  I didn’t much like the sound of that.

  Most of the painkiller had probably been flushed out of my system by now. A damp sensation under my shirt indicated blood. On the other hand, my head really did seem to be getting clearer.

  I’d begun to understand just how lunatic my intentions were.

  Also I wondered how Ginny would react when she found my room empty. Whatever she did, it wasn’t likely to be gentle. For either of us.

  I’d almost talked myself into covering my ass by stopping at a phone booth to call the hospital, talk to Ginny, or leave a message, when Santiago’s relic brought us up Foothill to the top of Cactus Blossom Court.

  Snow still fell. It was at least a couple of inches thick on the road. Santiago approached the slope carefully so he that wouldn’t start into a skid. I had plenty of time to see that Ginny had left all of Haskell’s lights on.

  I could also see his Continental in the driveway.

  That didn’t mean anything, I told myself. After hearing Ginny’s story, Acton wasn’t likely to let Haskell drive himself downtown. Nevertheless, the sight of his car reminded me of all the times I’d been wrong—and of how easily I could get into trouble just by walking into Haskell’s house.

  Worried now, I told Santiago to stop.

  Still near the top of the hill, he slid the car to a halt against the curb. Some instinct prompted him to turn off the headlights and cut the engine. Darkness seemed to swallow us while my eyes adjusted, but soon I could see Haskell’s house clearly through the snow.

  Santiago eyed the house, then looked at me. Automatically he stuck a cigarette in his mouth. But he didn’t light it.

  “This Anglo who killed my son he—lives there?”

  I nodded.

  He turned toward the house again. Roughly he asked, “What is your intent?”

  I was desperate to keep him out of danger. I didn’t want him to pay for any of my mistakes. “I’m going down there.” I tried to sound like I knew what I was doing, but the pain made me sound too harsh. “You’re going to wait here.”

  His stare told me I had to do better than that. I tried again.

  “He isn’t home. The chotas have him. But they don’t know he killed Pablo. They might keep him in protective custody for a while. Or they might let him go.

  “I want to search his house. For evidence. To prove what he did. But if the chotas let him go—or if they come to search his house themselves—or if Muy Estobal returns—I won’t find any evidence. I’ll end up back in the hospital, and no one will believe you when you say he killed your son. They’ll want proof.

  “I need you to stay here and watch. Warn me if anyone comes. Honk your horn. Twice, short and quick. But don’t honk until you’re sure they’re coming to the house. And make sure they don’t see you. I don’t want them to know where the sound came from. That way you won’t be in as much danger.”

  Santiago didn’t like it. But this was all new to him, and he didn’t know how to argue with me.

  “You are certain this killer is not in his house?”

  “No,” I said. “But I believe it. Yet because of the hazard I cannot go to search for evidence unless you consent to keep watch for me.”

  The end of his cigarette bobbed up and down as his jaw muscles knotted. This wasn’t exactly his idea of revenge.

  “Señor Santiago,” I said softly, “Pablo was your son. But we have no evidence. Without evidence it is possible to be mistaken. Any man may accuse another, out of malice or error. For that reason there is law. If you wish to commit murder yourself, return me to the hospital and go your own way.”

  He was a good man—angry as hell, hurt and bitter, hungry for violence or relief, but a good man. After a long minute, he sighed and let his weight sag into the seat. “I will keep watch. Did not I myself attempt to teach my son the importance of law? Him I failed. I will not fail you.”

  I wanted to thank him, but I didn’t know how.

  Fearing that I might change my mind or lose my nerve, I creaked open the door, put my feet into the snow, and lifted my torn guts out of the car.

  Snow filled the light from the street lamps. Flakes drifted heavily into my face. I closed the door with my hip and leaned against it, trying to call up reserves of strength or at least stubbornness that had been exhausted days ago. Then I hunched over the pain, folded my arms protectively across my stomach, and started down toward the house.

  Slowly. Carefully. The footing was bad, and if I slipped the fall would rip what was left of my insides apart. Somehow I made it. The snow covered my footsteps. It covered the blood I’d left on the walkway. I didn’t make a sound as I crossed the gravel.

  Here the light cut through the snowfall, bright as accusation. Fortunately, I didn’t need stealth. I couldn’t have managed it. Fumbling for the keys, I passed the cedars and went straight down the aisle to the door.

  Except I did need stealth. If the snow hadn’t muffled me so well, God knows what he would’ve done. Under the circumstances, however, the twist of my key in the lock only gave him a few seconds’ warning. Then I got the door open and found myself standing right in front of him.

  Our client, Reg Haskell.

  For a while we stared at each other. His eyes seemed to go blank at first. But then they got brighter and sharper as if he’d turned up a rheostat of adrenaline or excitement.

  “By God, Axbrewder,” he said, “if you weren’t right here I would have sworn nobody could walk around with a bullet in his stomach. You’re astonishing. How do you do it?”

  He stood at the top of the stairs. He hadn’t changed his clothes since the last time I saw him, but there was a suitcase on the floor on either side of him.

  I closed the door. Conserving my strength, I didn’t relock it. Then I took a few steps toward him, carrying the pain as well as I could. My right hand slipped into the pocket of my jacket and wrapped around the butt of the .45.

  A detached part of my mind wondered how far he intended to go. Did he mean to skip town completely, leave the state and maybe even the country? And if so, would he take his wife? Or did he just want to hide from el Senor for a while?

  But I didn’t ask those questions out loud. I was still too surprised.

  I stopped moving, and he looked at me more closely. Concern that might conceivably have been genuine crossed his face. “Axbrewder, you look terrible. What are you doing to yourself? You’re a wreck.”

  Panic and thirst closed my throat. I was in no condition to deal with him, no condition at all. I had to force my voice through miles of cotton, as if it were wrapped in bandages.

  “Cason let you go.”

  He ignored me. “Can I get you something? I mean it. You look terrible. You ought to lie down. How about a glass of water?”

  A glass of water would’ve been heaven. I had to glare at him until my skull throbbed in order to concentrate.

  “Why? Why did he let you go?”

  Haskell shrugged. “I told him the truth. He didn’t have any reason to hold me.”

  “What was the truth? I’ve never heard it. All I’ve heard is lies.” I wanted to flay him somehow, lay him bare. But I didn’t have the strength. I sounded like I’d swallowed a bucket of sand. “That’s how you play people. You don’t really care about cards or dice or coins. The kind of gambling you’re addicted to is manipulating people.”

  Then I stopped. I wasn’t getting anywhere. He just stood there and looked at me like I’d gone out of my mind.

  I changed directions. “Never mind. I already know what you told him.” Actually I had no idea, but that didn’t matter at the moment. “Tell me something else. Why did you hire us in the first place? You must’ve known you were taking a risk. You talked to Smithsonian about us. He’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid. Why buy that kind of trouble for yourself?”

  “Come on, Axbrewder.” Haskell didn’t show even a f
licker of uncertainty or fear. “You know why. I needed protection. Somebody honest and tough enough to face el Senor. I could see Smithsonian didn’t fit that description. And he has resources you lack. Money, personnel, intelligence.” Reg didn’t mind calling a spade a spade. “He might mess with things I wanted left alone. You and Fistoulari looked like exactly what I had in mind.

  “You scared me for a while,” he admitted. “I thought I’d made a mistake—and I don’t make very many. You insisted on prying into my life instead of nailing the people who want me dead. I said I was going to fire you, and I meant it. But then I saw Fistoulari coming unglued.” His contempt was plain in his voice. “Just thinking about el Senor made her panic. After that I knew I didn’t have to worry about her. And you were still too stubborn to stop protecting me.”

  Abruptly he shrugged. “Now I don’t need you anymore. Cason is going to take care of el Senor for me. Your job is finished.” Then he resumed looking concerned. “Let me call an ambulance for you. You should get back to the hospital.”

  He made me so mad that I wanted to pull out the .45 and blow his face off. But I didn’t. Instead I nodded at his suitcases. “Cason is going to take care of el Senor for you. Is that why you’re on the run?”

  At first he affected surprise. “On the run?” Then he gave me one of his laughs. I hated his laughs. “You have brain fever, Axbrewder. I’m not running anywhere. I’m going to join Sara. I’ll check into her hotel, and we’ll have a kind of mini-honeymoon. Celebrate the end of my problems. Cason already has the room number, in case he needs us for anything.”

  He said it so well that I almost wanted to believe him. On one of my good days, I might’ve found the logical flaw in his lies. Or I might’ve devised some way to trick the truth out of him. But I’d almost come to the end of myself, and I wasn’t done yet. I just had to trust my intuitions and do what came naturally.

  “If Cason let you go,” I said, “you must not have told him the whole truth. You must not have told him that you killed Pablo Santiago.”

  At least I got his attention. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened. “Who?”

  Then for the first time it occurred to me that he might not know Pablo’s name.

  “Pablo Santiago.” The last of my endurance was oozing out of me, and I didn’t have anything that even resembled evidence. “That kid you killed. The numbers runner.

  “All that crap about Roscoe Chavez. You got his name out of the newspaper. You never had anything to do with him. You just used him to give us a reason why el Senor is after you. Like that crock about the money laundry. Or the one about welshing on a bet. The truth is, he wants you dead because you murdered one of his runners.”

  Haskell looked shaken. Maybe he really was shaken. “Axbrewder,” he muttered. “What in hell—? You must be out of your mind. Where did you get an idea like that?”

  “From you.” Small dark spots started to swim across my vision. My throat burned for something to drink. “You can’t get your priorities straight. You hire us to protect you, and then you handcuff us with lies to keep us from doing our job. Innocent clients don’t act like that.

  “Here’s the truth. You’ve had trouble with your ‘investments.’ Gambling is like that. You got hooked on the excitement and the fancy living, and you kept digging yourself in deeper. Like any other kind of addict.” I knew all about it. “Finally, things got too bad to handle any other way, so you decided to try to clean up playing the numbers. Friday night you goosed your bank out of five thousand dollars and went down to the old part of town for more ‘investing.’

  “But Saturday night when you went to pick up your winnings there weren’t any. Imagine that. The runner had packets of money stuffed all over his body, twenty thousand dollars, but none of it was for you.

  “Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that you’re such a hotshot no one can beat you, and you’re willing to take on any odds just to prove how virile and fucking alive you are.” Between anger and pain, I’d nearly passed out. “He probably didn’t even resist when you took hold of him and broke his neck and piled him into your car. Or piled him into your car and then broke his neck. Then, when you had all the money, you pitched him out on Trujillo. You wanted the cops to think he was killed by the fall while he and his buddies were out joyriding.

  “It was all so easy. Probably made you feel like a real man. You only made about half a dozen mistakes.”

  “Mistakes?” He looked like he’d never heard the word before.

  “You didn’t stop to think that el Señor’s runners might be supervised. Watched. And whoever does that job has to know all the bettors. If the runner quits, or gets fired or promoted, or dies, el Senor doesn’t want to start from scratch.

  “Also the supervisor sets up the runner’s schedule. You had to use an identifying word or name to place your bets. He got all that, along with your description. And you were so clever, you went to a bunch of runners and placed a whole series of bets. When the supervisor heard about one man placing all those bets, he naturally got suspicious. He probably had Pablo tailed. There was probably an eyewitness when you killed him. That’s how el Señor found you so fast. The witness followed you home.

  “On top of that, on Monday morning you deposited exactly the same amount of money el Señor lost when Pablo was killed.”

  I was near the end, but I had to finish. “And you made the mistake of killing a kid I knew and liked. His parents deserved a whole lot better than what you did to them.”

  For a minute Haskell just stood there and stared at me. Then he chuckled softly. I couldn’t even guess what was going on inside him.

  “You know,” he said, “you have a hell of an imagination. If Roscoe were alive, he’d laugh himself silly. He and I were willing to try a scam. But not murder!”

  “No,” I said. “That one won’t work either. Chavez was killed because he got caught fucking el Senor’s daughter. It didn’t have anything to do with business.”

  “Really?” The thought fascinated him. “Then maybe we could have gotten away with it after all. Maybe I could have—” But abruptly he shook his head, made a dismissive gesture. “That doesn’t matter right now. You need help. I can’t let you die in front of me like this. First I’ll get you some water. Then I’ll call an ambulance.” He showed no hesitation as he started for the living room. “Come on. You can sit down in here.”

  Decisively he entered the room and headed toward the wet bar.

  I tightened my grip on the .45 and went after him. What else could I do? He was right—I needed water and an ambulance, in that order. Almost immediately. My whole head felt flamed with thirst, and the dampness at my waist was getting worse.

  Vaguely I noticed that the living room was cold. For a second or two I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized that the window was still open. He hadn’t bothered to close it. Snow collected on the sill and the carpet.

  Which meant—

  Come on, Axbrewder. What does it mean?

  —he was in a hurry. That was it. Such a hurry to get out that he hadn’t even bothered to close the window.

  The analytical mind at work. A veritable steel trap.

  He’d gone behind the wet bar. Stupid of me to let him do that. Now I couldn’t see his hands. I tried to secure my grip on the .45, but my arm seemed to be losing sensation, all the blood draining out of it. Fortunately, I heard liquid being poured. Then he came out from behind the bar, carrying a full highball glass.

  He pushed it at me. “Here. Drink this. I don’t care if you think you’re God Himself. You can’t last much longer.”

  How did he know I was so thirsty?

  My vision went gray at the edges. All my senses contracted around the glass in his hand, shutting out everything else. After all, I’d lost a lot of blood. I needed fluids.

  Still clutching the .45 with my right hand, I took the glass in my left. Haskell smiled like a cherub while I dragged the glass up to my face and drank.

  But he hadn??
?t put water in the glass. He’d filled it with vodka.

  Reflexively I swallowed a couple of times before I recognized the truth. Then I started to gag and sputter, tearing up my stomach. The glass fell somewhere, vodka sprayed at Haskell. He ducked, backed away. I tugged out the .45—

  —and alcohol bit into my guts like the business edge of a bandsaw.

  I didn’t scream. Not me. It was the whole room that screamed. The floor shrieked under my feet and the walls howled agony at each other and the dark wooden bellow of the wet bar hit me like a club. The lights exploded in my head, bits of glass and anguish squalling back and forth until my brain ripped to tatters. Some goon with a crane and a meat hook caught me by the belly and yanked me off my feet, but I never saw him.

  I couldn’t see anything at all except Haskell. He was all that remained of the world, and he straddled me like a conquering hero. He had the .45 in both hands. Pointed into my face.

  “Actually”—he sounded like he was screaming too, but that couldn’t be right, he must’ve been gloating—“it does make me feel fucking alive. You’re tough, I’ll give you that. But you’ve never been a match for me. Don’t you know you can’t drink anything when you have a hole in your stomach?”

  No. I didn’t know. No one ever told me.

  Maybe I’d gone all the way out of my head. The room seemed to yowl and screech. But in the background I could’ve sworn I heard a car horn. Two quick cries in the distance, like a wail with its throat cut.

  Apparently I was wrong. Haskell didn’t react.

  “But you’re worth what you get paid,” he smirked. “You’ve finally saved me. Now I don’t have to run. Instead I’ll simply wait until el Senor sends somebody after me again. I’ll shoot him with your gun. Just to be safe, I’ll shoot you with his gun. That will buy me enough time to figure out my next move.”

  No, I wasn’t out of my head. I should’ve been, but I wasn’t. He heard the same thing I did.