Back Story. Part 29

He took hold of my left arm and started to steer me away from the front door. "We'll go around back," he said. "Then we'll see."

"Sure thing," I said and pulled my arm away. "No need to push."

I set out ahead of them toward the back of the house where my car was parked. The two of them had to hurry to stay a step behind me. At the corner of the house, I turned right, and as Cheece came around the corner, I turned and hit him full out with a right cross that snapped his head left and put him on his back. As he rounded the corner, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt reached for his gun. I caught his right wrist before he could get to the gun and pulled him toward me and turned him so that I could bend his arm up behind his back. I put my left forearm under his chin and put some pressure on his neck. Then I turned both of us so Hawaiian Shirt was between me and the house. He was between me and Cheece, too, but Cheece was just now beginning to sit up, and I knew that his chimes were still ringing. It was Ziggy and whoever else was in the house that I needed to think about now. I began to back toward my car, dragging Hawaiian Shirt with me. He didn't make a sound. As I was halfway across the driveway, I saw Ziggy appear in the back door. He looked at Cheece, who was now on his hands and knees, and at Hawaiian Shirt and me in the driveway. He disappeared from the back door for a moment and then reappeared carrying what looked like a 9mm semiautomatic, though it could have been a.38- or a.40-caliber. If he shot me with it, the difference would be insignificant. I was at my car. I kept my left forearm tight on Hawaiian Shirt's throat and let go of his right arm and pulled my own small gun. I poked it into Hawaiian Shirt's back so he'd know I had one.

"You stand right there or I will shoot you to death," I said.

I let go of his throat. He didn't move. With him still screening me and my gun still pressed against his spine, I reached behind me with my left hand and opened my car door.

"Stay right there," I said and slid in to my car and put the key in, starting the engine. From around the jamb of his back door, his body mostly screened, Ziggy was aiming at me with both hands on the gun. Still holding my gun, I put the car in drive and floored it. The car lurched forward, tires screaming with friction as they spun on the hot top driveway. Hawaiian Shirt hit the ground the minute the car moved, and a bullet thumped through the backseat pa.s.senger window of my car. I bent as low as I could as I tore down the driveway. I felt, more than heard, another bullet tear into the body of the car somewhere. Then I was out of the driveway and onto the street and gone, only a little worse off than I was before.

51.

Ty-Bop and Junior were sitting on the front steps of Susan's house when I pulled up in front. They looked at me with recognition but no warmth. They were both black. Junior was about the size of Faneuil Hall, and Ty-Bop was average height and thin. They worked for Tony Marcus: Junior the muscle, Ty-Bop the shooter. I didn't care for them. I didn't care much for their boss, if it came to that. Even so, I nodded at them as I went up Susan's front stairs. Neither one nodded back. Churlish.

Pearl greeted me with an exuberant lunge, and when I went into the hall, I squatted and endured her exuberance until it abated. Hawk stood in the door of Susan's study, across from her office, and watched. When it was over, I stood and went past him into the study and sat on the couch against the front wall below the window.

"Ty-Bop and Junior?" I said.

"Tony owed me," Hawk said.

"Ty-Bop's about nineteen," I said.

"He older than he look," Hawk said.

"Okay, so maybe he's twenty," I said. "He's also a cocaine addict."

"He won't use while he's working here," Hawk said.

"You spoke to him," I said.

"I spoke to him. I spoke to Tony."

I nodded. "How about they're scaring the c.r.a.p out of everyone on Linnaean Street," I said.

"That's a bad thing?" Hawk said.

"No," I said. "Susan seen them?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"Any friend of mine," Hawk said.

I nodded again. "Okay," I said. "As long as you trust them."

"They'll stay," Hawk said. "Tony's word is good."

"Got anybody else?"

"Vinnie'll be back in town tomorrow," Hawk said. "Cambridge puts a cruiser out front at night from eleven to seven. And, if all else fails, we got you."

"Not for a couple of days," I said. "I gotta go back to San Diego."

"Barry Gordon?"

"Yes. Can you arrange a gun?"

"Just like last time," Hawk said. "How about Bonnie/Bunny? You find her?"

"I found her."

"And?"

I told him.

"Figure the husband's in the family business?"

"Seems so," I said. "And he or his father-in-law or both of them don't want anyone talking to Bunny."

"Or at least don't want you," Hawk said. "You thought you could waltz in there and chat her up?"

"I was counting on charm," I said.

Hawk grunted. "Maybe we need to get her out of there," Hawk said. "Get her someplace quiet where your charm can do its work."

"We may have to," I said. "Let's see what I can shake loose from Barry. What time is Vinnie due?"

"Be here tomorrow morning," Hawk said.

I looked at the closed door of Susan's office.

"She got a client?" I said.

"Woman," Hawk said. "In a short skirt."

"Observant," I said.

"A natural gift," Hawk said.

A client canceled, and Susan had a two-hour break before the next one. We had lunch together upstairs in her apartment. I told her what I knew and what I was going to do.

"People are going to some lengths," Susan said.

"And I'm not quite sure why," I said.

"It must have something to do with that bank robbery when Daryl's mother got killed."

"But what?" I said. "Was she there? Did she do the shooting? Is there something else?"

"Do you think Barry Gordon knows?"

"He knows something worth two thousand dollars a month to Bunny's mother."

"And you can't call him on the phone?"

"Can't scare him as effectively on the phone," I said.

"You plan to scare him."

"Yes. I can't pay him more than Mrs. Karnofsky."

"Can you scare him more than Mr. Karnofsky?" Susan said.

"A guy in your living room is more scary than a guy three thousand miles away," I said.

We were sharing a large tossed salad and hot cornbread, which I had put together while I waited for Susan. Susan nibbled on a wedge of purple heirloom tomato, which we had bought on Sunday at Verrill Farm. She nodded.

"And," I said, "we don't know for a fact that Sonny, Mr. Karnofsky, knows about the money going to Gordon."

"Because it comes out of her bank account," Susan said.

"Yes."

"But wouldn't he be the one putting money into the account?"

"Doesn't mean he knows how she spends it," I said.

"No," she said. "I suppose it doesn't."

I ate a square of cornbread. Susan had a bite of red lettuce. In a move reminiscent of her predecessor, Pearl coiled in and around our feet-ever hopeful.

"How do you feel?" I said to Susan.

"Being in danger is rarely pleasant," she said. "And though the prospect of being in danger without you is less pleasant, I'm feeling well looked-after."

"How do you feel about Junior and Ty-Bop?"

"They're hideous," Susan said. "But I trust them because Hawk said I should."

I nodded. "Vinnie will be along tomorrow," I said.

"Vinnie is not actually charming," Susan said.

"That's because you haven't seen him shoot," I said.

"And I hope not to."

We finished our lunch, during which I gave Pearl a couple bites of cornbread when Susan wasn't looking. The second time, she caught me.

"You are just teaching her to beg from the table," she said.

"If she's going to do it," I said, "isn't it best if she knows how?"

Susan pretended that what I said was not amusing. "Oh, G.o.d," she said.

In the afternoon, Susan saw the rest of her patients while I organized my travels. That night, we had supper together and went to bed early. Unfortunately, Pearl went to bed with us, which is a bit like trying to make love around a giraffe.

We are, however, experienced, determined, and adroit.

We managed.

52.

On a case where I'd been paid six Krispy Kreme donuts, air travel alone had put me in deficit. But here I was again in San Diego with a Colt Python loaner gun and a rented Ford Taurus, driving up Route 5 again, toward Mission Bay to visit Barry Gordon. It was warm and sunny and pleasant in San Diego, as it always was, except when it was warm, rainy, and pleasant.

The Lab was lying in the sun on the front step when I arrived at Barry Gordon's little house. He didn't bark this time. Maybe he remembered me. Or maybe he was too comfortable in the sun to bother. I reached down and scratched him behind the ear before I knocked on the door.

Barry said "Hey" when he opened the door.

I said "Hey" in return and shoved him back into his living room and shut the door behind me.

"Whaddya doing, man?" Barry said.

I walked to him until my chest was against his and my face was maybe an inch from his face, if I bent my neck.

"Hey, man," Barry said. "What the f.u.c.k?"

"Barry," I said. "You have been bulls.h.i.tting me."

"Like h.e.l.l."

"I hate it when people bulls.h.i.t me."

"I never bulls.h.i.tted you, man."