The Man Who Risked His Partner

  A key in the lock of the front door.

  It’s always the trivial details that kill you. If Ginny had known that I’d left the door unlocked, she could’ve walked right in and nailed Haskell. Or if I’d locked the door after me, one turn of the key would’ve unlocked it and she still might’ve been quick enough. But her first twist locked the door. Then she spent a couple of seconds rattling the knob before she tried turning the key the other way.

  Quickly Haskell crept into the atrium.

  He wanted to shoot one of el Señor’s men. But none of them had a key to his front door. He couldn’t risk killing someone else with my gun.

  Her key still in her hand, Ginny pushed the door open. She was in a hurry—too much of a hurry to be careful. Her eyes scanned the atrium. Then she saw me through the doorway. Simple horror seemed to make my vision as clear as sunlight.

  She wore her claw. Its stainless steel hooks caught the light and leered like a grin in double vision.

  I tried to shout, tried with all my heart. But I couldn’t. Spasms of pain clenched every muscle in my chest. Faint with anoxia, I gaped in her direction like a stranded fish, but nothing came out of my mouth.

  Then it was too late. Haskell hit her on the back of the neck with the butt of the .45, and she dove face first into the carpet.

  When he saw that she wasn’t moving, he smiled as if he could hardly keep his laughter to himself.

  With the side of his foot, he pushed the door shut, but he didn’t take his eyes off Ginny and me. “Better and better,” he chortled softly. “I told you I don’t need luck. Skill makes its own luck.” He was having the time of his life.

  But he didn’t forget to be cautious. He kept Ginny covered while he retrieved her purse and helped himself to her .357. Then he disappeared into the bedroom while I gagged and retched up blood and tried to move and couldn’t. When he returned, he had a thick roll of white bandage tape.

  Deftly, like he’d been practicing for years, he taped Ginny’s wrists behind her. Still grinning, he dragged her by the shoulders of her coat into the living room and dropped her beside me. Paralyzed with pain, I couldn’t even twitch when he pushed me onto my front, tugged my arms behind me, and secured my wrists, too. Then, just to keep me from getting bored, he hooked a shoe under my rib cage and levered me onto my side.

  Did I scream that time? Not old man-of-steel Axbrewder. My mind went blank with transcendental agony, and I lay still, trying to be dead.

  “This will be quite a shoot-out,” he said. He had a gun in each hand, for all the world like a kid playing the best game of cowboys-and-Indians. “I’ll be able to take care of all my enemies at once. One of you will kill el Señor’s hit man. Not her.” Enjoying his own contempt, he kicked Ginny’s artificial hand. “She doesn’t deserve it. I’ll give you that honor. Do wonders for your reputation. Unfortunately you won’t survive to take credit. And el Senor won’t be able to threaten me again for a while. He’ll be too busy defending himself against a double murder charge. Even if the cops can’t prove anything on him, I’ll still be innocent. I’ll walk away with twenty thousand dollars and a fresh start.”

  Abruptly he seemed to remember he still had things to do. He put the guns in his pockets, moved to the wall switch, and snapped off the living room lights.

  “Don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder. “I doubt you’ll have to stay in the dark for long. With the lights off, el Señor’s thug will think I’m going to bed. He’ll come after me soon.”

  Then he left the room. In the atrium, he hit the switches for all the entryway and exterior lights. A glow from the lower level lit his way down the stairs. After that I couldn’t see him anymore. When he reached the bottom, he flipped more switches, and the last glow vanished. Night rushed into the room through the open window, as cold as the snow.

  In the dark, I could hear Ginny breathing raggedly. She sounded like Haskell had broken her skull.

  When I tried to say her name, nothing came out.

  Everything else was silent, muffled by snow and pain—the night outside, Haskell’s movements downstairs, my internal bleeding—everything except the raw faint rasp of air in and out of Ginny’s lungs. I tried again.

  But I didn’t make a sound.

  Dear God, what if he had broken her skull?

  “Ginny.”

  Ginny Ginny Ginny, like an echo down into the bottom of an abyss.

  No answer.

  Ginny Ginny—

  —stop that, I told myself. Forget the pain. So it hurts. So what? Push it out of the way. Try again.

  “Ginny.” For God’s sake. “Wake up.”

  From so far away that the distance wrenched my heart, I heard her breathing catch. She took in a muffled gasp, let out a groan.

  “God,” she exhaled. “Damn that sonofabitch.” A slurred murmur. “Who in hell—?”

  Through the dark, I felt her stiffen. “What happened? Brew?” Her voice started to rise. “Brew?”

  “Quiet,” I sighed at her. I felt like I was whispering blood. “He’ll hear you.”

  “Who? Where are you?” She made scuffling sounds. Her head knocked against my shoulder. “Mick Axbrewder,” she hissed furiously, “what in hell are you doing here?”

  “Haskell is here.” My voice was a wisp. It sounded even farther away than she did. “He’s going to kill us.”

  She froze. I felt her listening to the dark. After a moment she breathed carefully, “Why?”

  Working at it practically one word at a time, I gave her all the explanation I had strength for. “He stole that twenty thousand. From one of el Señor’s runners. Broke the kid’s neck.”

  My memory played tricks on me. I saw the parking lot attendant burn horribly. I saw Señora Santiago cover her face with her apron. I thought I heard Ginny hit her stump against the wall of the den.

  “Pablo Santiago.” I should’ve told her when I first read it in the paper. But I’d needed it for myself. To help me bear the grief of losing her. “That’s why el Señor—”

  “Why el Señor wants him dead,” she finished for me. “Damn right.” Then she faltered. “Pablo?” She’d known his parents as well as I had.

  “Yes.” I felt like I was weeping.

  She sighed. “I wish I’d known. It might’ve made a difference.”

  Of course it would’ve made a difference. She would’ve understood what I doing.

  But that wasn’t the difference she had in mind. Her voice hardened. “When I went to your room and saw you weren’t there, I almost threw a fit. And I would have, too, but I knew I didn’t have time. I had to catch you before you got out of the hospital.

  “One of the ER nurses remembered seeing you in the parking lot. And one of the security guards thought you were picked up by a man in an old clunker. They didn’t stop you because it never occurred to them you might be a patient.

  “That left me with nothing. You were gone.” She choked on the word momentarily. “I couldn’t imagine what craziness you had in mind. All I knew was, you had a bullet hole in your guts and were probably bleeding like a stuck pig.

  “So I went to see el Senor.”

  “What?” Somehow she surprised me enough to penetrate the pain. “You went—?”

  “Sure. What did you expect? I had to assume that was where you were going. Nothing else made any sense. So I tried to get there ahead of you.

  “I didn’t see Estobal around El Machismo. When I finally talked my way into el Señor’s office, I told him to call off his dogs. We’d turned Haskell over to the cops. That was the end of the case as far as we were concerned. He didn’t have any reason to hurt you again. In fact, he was ahead of the game. You took a bullet in the gut, Estobal didn’t have a scratch. I told him to leave us alone.”

  I tried to imagine anyone in Puerta del Sol telling el Senor what to do. But I couldn’t.

  “He just laughed at me. When he laughs at people—” She shuddered. “He told me the cops had already released Haskell. Surely I must’v
e known. Why else would I go to el Senor with such a childish trick? Nothing I did or said would save his life. Or the life of anybody who got in the way. Then I was escorted out.

  “I wanted to ask him how he knew what the cops had done with Haskell. But I didn’t get the chance.

  “With Haskell on the loose, I assumed Estobal was on his way here. And maybe you’d come here, too. Maybe you’d figured everything out I had to move fast. First I went back to the apartment, got the claw. I hate it, but it’s better than nothing. Then I came here.”

  Musing blood, I filled in the rest. Now I knew what was going to happen. I knew what she would do.

  I couldn’t bear it. The mere thought made me want to puke. No one in their right mind would take that kind of risk. But I had no choice. Neither of us did. There wasn’t any other way to get back the woman.

  “Haskell knows Estobal’s coming,” I said. “It’s a trap. He intends to shoot Estobal with our guns. Frame all of us for killing each other.”

  For a few seconds she went still. Then, grimly, she whispered, “Roll over, Brew. Give me your wrists.”

  The command in her voice was familiar, like an old friend. That was my only consolation.

  Alcohol had turned my guts to jelly and anguish. I could hardly twitch. Nevertheless, I did it somehow. Rolled over. Shrieks yammered against the roof of my mouth, but I didn’t let them out.

  Almost immediately she grappled for my forearms. With her hand, she felt her way to the tape. Then, fumbling with uncertainty and desperation, she pushed one hook of the claw between my wrists under the tape.

  Down at the base, the edges of the hooks were like a pair of shears. Bunching the muscles of her forearm to make her artificial hand open and close, she cut the tape.

  I nearly wailed. For a couple of seconds, I feared that she would sever the tendons in my wrists. But it worked. My hands twisted loose.

  With my arms free, I could shift positions more easily.

  At first I lay there gasping while my head spun and my chest hurt. Now was my chance to be a hero. Right now. Everything so far had been preparation. Saber rattling and fanfares. Now I had to prove myself. To myself.

  The crucial point was to leave Ginny’s wrists strapped so that she couldn’t stop me. The rest was simple. Creep downstairs into the maze of Haskell’s house. Spring his trap on him. Then come back upstairs in time to deal with Estobal. Just like in the movies. Then Ginny would realize how much I loved her. She’d go all soft and feminine, and I’d be big and strong, and we’d live happily ever after.

  Neat, huh?

  I didn’t even try it. Instead I levered myself around until I could reach her wrists. Blinded by darkness, I located the tape and dug my knife out of my pocket. But my fingers were numb. I could barely open the knife. Cutting at the tape felt like slitting her wrists.

  At first I couldn’t do it. Somewhere in the background, I thought I heard myself sob. But when I tried again more gently, I managed to slip the blade under the tape.

  The tape parted with a tearing sound like a wail.

  “All right,” she breathed. “All right.” She sounded ready and fatal, like a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. Quickly she crouched beside me. “Now we’re in business.

  “I’m going after that bastard. Wait for me in the atrium. You can watch my back. If you see or hear anything, throw something down the stairs. I’ll know what to do.”

  Even though she couldn’t see it, I nodded.

  I didn’t hear her go. The carpet muffled every sound. But I felt her moving away, evaporating into the dark. Soon the house swallowed her.

  Haskell’s house. He knew his way around better than both of us put together. And he was armed. And he expected someone to come after him. What chance did she have?

  Bleeding quietly to myself, I got up onto my hands and knees. The pain in my stomach filled the room, and as it expanded, my life stretched thinner and thinner. I was nearly gone. Without light, I couldn’t get my bearings. But then I made out a faint glow reflecting from the street lamps through the open window. I crawled in that direction.

  When I reached the window, I found a snowdrift melting into the carpet. Snow piled nearly three inches deep on the sill. It seemed to flow into my face, cooling the sting of my scratches—offering to cool the hot damage in my guts. Ginny needed me. I propped my hands on the sill, wedged my legs under me, and tumbled out through the window.

  The impact when I hit the ground turned everything to the soft thick falling blankness of snow.

  I didn’t know how long I lay there, cradled by the cold. Probably not very long. If a significant amount of time had passed, I would’ve been beyond reach, my mind and my blood both drained out of me and no way to get them back. I wouldn’t have been able to hear the horn.

  A car horn. Two quick blasts.

  Someone was coming.

  That’s why I was out here. In case someone came. To take them by surprise instead of being trapped in the house.

  Like Ginny.

  I had to make myself move again.

  For a while I thought I might actually pull it off. I couldn’t stand at all. When I tried my feet seemed to spread out through the snow, and my knees refused to straighten. But I could crawl. A few inches at a time. Toward the front of the house.

  But the snow accumulated in front of me. It fell on my back, weighed me down. It was soft and kind, it wanted me to rest, and it was too heavy to refuse. The cold made my bleeding hurt less. I got as far as the corner. If I’d looked around it, I could’ve seen the cedars guarding the entryway. Seen Haskell’s Continental. But I didn’t look. I couldn’t go any farther.

  By now I was too late. The horn had tried to warn me, but el Senor’s emissary was already in the house. Estobal, no doubt. There was nothing I could do about it. Some things you just have to forgive yourself for.

  Lying on my face, I let everything get away.

  For a while I slept. I needed the rest. All my problems left me, and I felt peace approaching. It was right around the corner. Coming this way. The only time in my life that I’d ever had any peace was stone drunk. And it never lasted. First it was amber and bliss, the pure blessing of alcohol. Then it changed into something else. Maybe anger. Maybe grief. Maybe nightmares and the howling spook of the DTs.

  Or maybe voices.

  Two men rasping at each other.

  I recognized Rudolfo Santiago, hissing curses and pain. Then I made out the other voice.

  Muy Estobal.

  “Silence, pendejo,” he snarled in Spanish, “or I will crush your arms. You sought to warn the house of my approach. Now you will make recompense. You will shield me from bullets, serving as hostage, or I swear by the Mother of God that I will leave you with no bone intact.”

  “Butcher,” Santiago croaked. “Son of a whore.” But he couldn’t match Estobal’s strength. By degrees I heard him fail.

  It was worth one last try. I’d been given another chance. If I waited, I’d be too late. And Ginny would be caught.

  Come on. Just once more.

  I raised my head. Shoved my arms under me. Levered my weight onto my legs.

  Lumbering drunkenly, I rounded the corner and headed for the aisle of the entryway.

  The snow covered me. It was good as stealth. I made no sound.

  Past the cedars, I almost fell. But a few steps down the aisle, I crashed into Estobal from behind.

  That saved me.

  My momentum carried us a few more steps. He lost his grip on Santiago. My arms wrapped around his neck.

  He spat a curse. Recovering his balance, he tried to twist away from me.

  I had no strength like his. Nevertheless, I caught my right forearm under his chin and hung on.

  His hands clawed at my arm. He yanked me from side to side as if I weighed nothing. Heaving himself backward, he slammed me against the wall. His bulk sledgehammered at my torn guts.

  As if he thought that he could make me let him go kill Ginny.

&n
bsp; Noises like shots went off in the distance.

  I gripped my right wrist with my left hand so that I could pull with both arms. My forearm ground into his throat. I held on.

  Santiago crowded into the struggle.

  He was too close. He would get hurt—

  A second later he reeled away like he’d been kicked.

  He had Estobal’s .38.

  Estobal battered me around in the aisle like a rag doll. Must’ve been an entertaining sight—Axbrewder being flapped in the breeze like so much wet laundry. With a little advance notice, you could’ve sold tickets. But I didn’t feel any of it except the one sharp absolute scream where my stomach used to be. And as long as that scream lasted I held on.

  I didn’t hear his larynx snap. Sometime later we folded together to the cement. I didn’t notice much difference.

  When the light came on in the aisle, however, it snagged what was left of my mind. I turned my head in time to see the front door jerk open and Ginny appear, her .357 ready in her fist.

  Quickly she scanned the aisle. Seeing Santiago surprised her, but she didn’t falter. As soon as he lowered the .38, she pointed her claw at Estobal.

  “Is he alone?” she demanded. “I’ve taken care of Haskell.” Her eyes, and the whetted lines of her face, burned with an alert gray fire. “He’s dead.”

  “Good for you,” I sighed while I started to pass out. “Help me. I’m bleeding.”

  21

  Not being exactly what you might call on top of things at the time, I didn’t see how the rest of the night turned out. But I heard about it later.

  Cason showed up with about six squad cars and made a big deal out of storming the house. When he found that there was no one left to shoot at, much less arrest, he tried to give Ginny bloody hell for ruining his case against el Senor. He’d let Haskell go to bait a trap. He said. He wanted to catch Estobal in the act of attempting to kill Haskell. He said. I say that he and his troops arrived a little late to be convincing.

  Anyway, Ginny took his hide off for him. In front of his men. But she didn’t tell me that part. Santiago did.

  At least now I could assume that I didn’t have to worry about el Senor sending anybody after me. Not for a while. True, I’d killed his bodyguard. But he had too many other problems to deal with—like, why one of his employees was so eager to shoot people. I might be safe for a long time.