Potshot

by Robert B. Parker

  "Practice," I said.

  She reached over and squeezed my bicep.

  "Oooo," she said.

  "Oo?"

  "You must be very strong."

  We drank again, which took care of Bebe's gimlet. I nodded to the bartender and he brought her another one.

  "Are you in town alone?" she said.

  "Yes."

  "Is that because you are alone?"

  "You mean do I have a person?"

  "Yes."

  "I do." I said.

  "What's her name?"

  "Susan," I said.

  "You married?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Not exactly? What does that mean?"

  "It means not exactly," I said.

  Bebe tasted her new gimlet. Quite a lot of it.

  "Leaves you room to maneuver," she said.

  I saw no reason to explain Susan and me to Bebe, so I nodded.

  "She pretty?"

  "No," I said. "She's beautiful."

  "Well aren't you gallant?" She put the stress on the last syllable.

  "I'm accurate." I stressed the last syllable, too.

  "Is she as beautiful and sweet as Lou Buckman?" Bebe said.

  "Do I hear irony in your voice?" I said.

  "Of course not," Bebe said.

  She finished her second gimlet in another big swallow. I nodded at the bartender.

  "Lou is very beautiful… and very sweet."

  She looked at her empty glass and looked up at the bartender. She saw that he was putting the finishing touches on her next gimlet, and looked relieved.

  "As sweet as you?" I said.

  Bebe grinned. She was already a little sloshed.

  "Almost," she said.

  The bartender put her third gimlet on a napkin in front of her. She picked it up promptly and drank some.

  "And how sweet are you?" I said.

  "Maybe you'll find out," she said.

  "Okay, so how sweet is Lou?"

  Bebe giggled.

  "Maybe you'll find that out, too. You wouldn't be the first."

  "I thought she was blissful in her marriage," I said.

  "Sometimes."

  Bebe had a little gimlet.

  "Tell me about it," I said.

  She looked at my half glass of beer.

  "You're not staying up with me," she said.

  "I started before you," I said.

  "You don't like to get drunk?" she said.

  "I find it hampers me when I do."

  She giggled.

  "Wouldn't want you hampered," she said and bumped her knee against mine.

  I tried to look seductive.

  "Tell me about Lou and Steve."

  "Them," she said.

  I nodded encouragingly.

  "Well I know at least two men she had flings with. I assume they weren't the only two."

  "I'll be damned," I said. "Who were they?"

  Bebe slugged in some gimlet.

  "The men she had flings with," I said. Spenser, you old gossip.

  "Well Mark, for one, and dear old Dean-o for another."

  "Mark Ratliff?"

  "Un-huh."

  "And the cop?"

  "Dean Walker," she said.

  "And how do you know this?" I said.

  Bebe smiled as serenely as she could, being fairly well bagged.

  "Men like to kiss and tell," she said. She might have said, "kissh."

  "These guys just stopped by the office one day and told?" I said.

  "Not exactly," she said.

  "Am I to gather that you were flinging a little yourself?" I said.

  She giggled and drank.

  "I like to kissh and tell, myself."

  "Don't we all?" I said.

  She finished her gimlet.

  "You got a room?" she said.

  "Sure do," I said.

  "Let's go see it," she said.

  "Let's," I said.

  I was trying to leer, but she was too drunk to notice. I signed the tab and took her arm and we went out of the bar and into the lobby and up the stairway to my room.

  Inside, she looked around the room.

  "So neat," she said. "Whyn't you have room service bring us up a drink? I gotta freshen up a little."

  "You bet."

  She was in the bathroom for a long time. When she came out I could see that she had worked on her hair a little, and there was a fresh smell of newly sprayed perfume.

  "Room service come yet?"

  "Not yet," I said.

  "Well maybe we should lie on the bed and wait for them," she said.

  "That would be swell," I said.

  She walked over to the bed, and lay down on it. She smiled at me and patted the bed beside her.

  "Come on," she said. "I won't bite."

  I sat on the edge of the bed next to her.

  "So tell me a little about Steve Buckman," I said.

  She stared up at me. Her eyes were unfocused. Her pupils looked very big.

  "Steve?"

  "Yes, what was he really like?"

  She kept looking at me.

  "Come on," she said. "Let's do it now."

  "You think Steve was different than he seemed?" I said.

  Her eyelids drooped. I thought she might be trying to look vampish. Then her eyelids shut. I was saved. She was asleep. I straightened her out a little, put the

  Chapter 9

  WHEN I CAME back into the bar, the bartender gave me a look full of questions he knew he shouldn't ask. "Beer," I said.

  "Will there be a gimlet with that, sir?"

  "Couldn't resist, could you?" I said.

  He shrugged.

  "There's always other jobs," he said.

  "Mrs. Taylor is resting," I said.

  The bartender smiled.

  "She started resting as soon as we got upstairs," I said.

  "Never heard it called that," the bartender said.

  "Beer," I said.

  He brought it and moved back down the bar, smiling to himself. I sipped a little beer.

  I missed Susan. I was spending too much time alone in my head. Solitary speculation is good up to a point. Your mind is uncluttered. You can focus. But with no one to test your perceptions against, things eventually began to circle on themselves. I had spent a lot of time during my life inside my own head. Since I'd been with Susan I had her to help me think, and even when I was away from her, I could sometimes clear my head by explaining things to her in absentia.

  It was clear that Bebe was restive in her marriage. Indeed.

  Everything else is less clear. If I believed what she told me, then things are not quite what they had seemed. This is not surprising. Almost nothing is quite what it seems. Even The Preacher is a little different than I'd expected.

  Of course.

  Unless both Bebe and Ratliff are lying, it's pretty sure that Lou Buckman knows Mark Ratliff well, and omitted him from her list. She could have forgotten, though it seems unlikely, especially if she'd slept with him. She could be ashamed of sleeping with him and omitted him in hopes it wouldn't come up. And if she had been sleeping with Dean Walker, it's reasonable that neither would mention it. But it would suggest that Lou also was restive in her marriage.

  Cherchez la femme?

  Susan too?

  Lou being restive in her marriage doesn't mean she killed him. Why would she hire me to find out who killed him if she was the one? Why would she hire me to find out who killed him if she didn't love him enough to be faithful? My imagination shrugged. Maybe she loved him in her fashion and her fashion was different from the ones I endorsed.

  Susan shook her head.

  You don't cheat on someone you love?

  No.

  Ratliff was from L.A. Lou and Steve Buckman were from L.A. I wonder where Walker's from? Nobody's from Potshot. Except maybe somebody from the Dell. I've got plenty of time to think about it. Bebe didn't look like she was going to wake up soon, and when she does, I don't want to be in th
e room. Bebe is a single-minded woman.

  Yes.

  I drank a little more beer, carefully. In a town where I had annoyed nearly everyone, including the leader of a large gang of vicious thugs, I thought it unwise to get rolling drunk.

  Maybe I should confront Lou with the allegations. What does that get me? She'll deny them and I still won't know whether they're true.

  Un-huh.

  And if she's conning me then I've given away that I know it and my chances of figuring out the con are reduced.

  Un-huh.

  So maybe pretty soon I should go to L.A. and look into these people a little. And maybe Susan should come with me.

  Maybe.

  And in the meantime, I got nothing else to do except sit around and see what develops. What if I went up and lay down on the bed with Bebe for awhile.

  Maybe not.

  Chapter 10

  IT WAS Too soon to go back to my room. Bebe would still be there asleep. I wondered if she'd remember anything when she woke up. Maybe she'd think we had in fact done the deed, and would look on me fondly next time we met. I went out and sat in a straight chair on the front porch of The Jack Rabbit Inn with one foot against a post, balancing my chair on its back legs, feeling like Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine. I was alone. A cheery male weather weenie on television had said that the temperature was 108. People in shorts and sunglasses glanced at me in puzzlement as they moved quickly in and out of air-conditioned stores. A lot of them wore big hats. The Potshot police cruiser with two of Dean Walker's four cops in it was idling in front of the hotel. An old International Harvester Scout with no top came noisily down Main Street past me and rolled to a stop in front of the store where Lou Buckman ran her excursion business. The Preacher was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. The patrol car slipped into gear and moved away. There were two guys in the back seat of the Scout. If any of them noticed me sitting on the porch like Wyatt Earp, they didn't show it. What's the point of sitting like Wyatt Earp in 108 degree heat if no one pays any attention. When the car stopped, one of the guys in the back-a tall guy with shoulder-length hair, who looked sort of like Ichabod Crane-swung a leg over the side and jumped out as agilely as if he didn't look like Ichabod. He went into Lou Buckman's store and came out in a short time holding Lou by the arm. I let my chair fall forward and stood and walked toward them. We all reached the topless Scout at the same time.

  The Preacher saw me coming and watched me, I think, through black sunglasses until I reached the car.

  "Spenser," he said.

  "Preacher."

  "Mrs. Buckman been making contributions to the Dell," he said.

  I could barely hear him. The tall guy let go of Lou Buckman and shifted his ground a little. The second rider was sitting with one foot on the console between the front seats. He was wearing motorcycle boots, and a knife was stuck in the top of the left one, which would make him left-handed. He wasn't as tall as I am, but he was wider, an obvious bodybuilder, wearing a sweaty-looking orange T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His head was shaved. He had prison tattoos on both forearms. The driver was Mexican, clean-shaven and smooth-looking. They both appeared bored with the whole scene.

  "And she's delinquent?" I said.

  "Delinquent;" The Preacher said.

  He did his soft little snarly laugh.

  "That's what she is," he said. "She's fucking delin-quent."

  "And this is small-claims court?" I said.

  The Preacher looked at the men with him.

  "Small-claims court," he murmured. "That's a good one, isn't it?"

  The other men nodded. I looked at Lou Buckman.

  "You want to pay them the money, Lou?"

  "I want these men to leave me alone," she said.

  I nodded.

  "Want to got nothing to do with it," The Preacher said.

  I nodded again. Taciturn. Everybody was quiet.

  "You're going to interfere," The Preacher mumbled. "Ain't you."

  "Yep."

  The Preacher jerked his head at Ichabod and Ichabod kicked me in the hip. He would have kicked me in the groin had I not moved my groin out of the way. It made me stagger back a couple of steps, and Ichabod jumped in swinging. He was strong the way some of those tall, bony guys are strong. And he was pretty good. He put out a nice stiff left, which he planned to follow with a right cross. I slipped to the left, which threw him off enough so that I could step inside the right cross and get a handful of his hair. I pulled his head forward and broke his nose with my head. Still holding his hair in one hand, I got my other hand into his crotch and put my shoulder into him and lifted him off the ground and slammed him down on the hood of the truck. He grunted, and went limp. When I stood back, he slowly slid off the hood and lay in the street with his mouth open. I turned to meet the bodybuilder who had scrambled out of the back seat. He had the knife out of his boot top, holding it low in his left hand. He was stronger than Ichabod. And he had a knife. I moved away from him. The Preacher was watching with no expression. The Mexican still looked bored. He started toward me. I had my gun in an ankle holster, but I didn't want to start shooting in the middle of the street if I didn't have to. I took another step back, and slid my belt out of my pant loops. It was a wide leather belt with a big buckle. I had a momentary vision of my pants falling down, and me winning the fight when everyone fell down laughing. I looped it around my left hand so that the buckle end swung loose. Almost gently the bodybuilder made a pass at me with the knife. It was big, like a Bowie knife. I hit him in the wrist just above the knife with the belt buckle and he made kind of a yelp. I swung the belt buckle backhand and hit him in the face with it. He yelped again, and put his right hand up to shield himself and lunged at me with the knife. I jumped back. He came up short, he lunged again and I kicked him in the groin. He was not as alert as I had been. He didn't move his groin behind his hip. He howled this time, and doubled over. I grabbed the knife arm and pulled it toward me and stepped under it and twisted it up behind his back. I gave his shoulder a wrench and the knife fell from his hand and landed dully on the soft asphalt. I shoved him away from me and he staggered and stood bent over with his hands between his thighs; next to Ichabod. I spun away from him, moving to my right, looking for the Mexican. He was still sitting, still bored, except that he was pointing a big revolver with a long barrel at me. I stopped. I didn't see Lou. The Preacher was watching me the way you might watch an unusual lizard. On the sidewalks on both sides of the street, people had stopped to stare. They stood in little groupings, some of them sheltering behind whatever they could shelter behind, in case things got to flying around. There were faces in the store windows, and down the street I could see Lou walking toward us with Dean Walker.

  "Shoot him?" the Mexican said.

  The Preacher was silent for a moment.

  "Lemme think," he said.

  Walker left Lou Buckman on the sidewalk and stepped into the street.

  "You're under arrest," he said to me.

  The Preacher said, "Walker?"

  "I assume these gentlemen wish to press charges," Walker said.

  The Mexican rested the long-barreled handgun in his lap, still pointed at me. The Preacher looked at Walker and me. On the street Ichabod was sitting up, and the Bodybuilder had gotten to his knees. The Mexican looked at The Preacher. The Preacher said something I couldn't hear and gestured forward with his chin. The Mexican put the gun down, put the truck in gear, and drove away.

  Chapter 11

  I SAT IN Dean Walker's cool office with him and Lou Buckman. "Well," Walker said, "we've given them enough time. I guess they're not going to pursue assault charges."

  I said, "Whew!"

  "So I guess I can't hold you."

  "I don't know why you arrested him anyway," Lou said.

  "He was just trying to protect me."

  Walker nodded.

  "That's sort of my job," he said.

  "Well isn't it your job to arrest that Preacher?"


  "For what?"

  "For having Steve killed."

  "I got no evidence, Lou."

  "Because you're afraid to look for it."

  "Or because there isn't any."

  "You didn't seem so worried about that when you arrested a man who wasn't doing anything wrong."

  "Lou," I said. "He arrested me to keep me from getting shot by The Preacher's driver."

  She sat for a moment without doing anything. Then she opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything.

  "That's Spenser's theory," Walker said.

  Lou stood up suddenly and stalked from the office. Walker watched her go. She would have slammed the door except that it was on a pneumatic closer and she couldn't. When she was gone and the door had closed, Walker and I looked at each other. Neither of us spoke for a time.

  Then Walker said, "You're free to go."

  So I went.

  I pushed through the heat, back up Main Street, toward my hotel.

  Chapter 12

  THE DAY AFTER I had my first fight with the Dell, I came into the lobby of The Jack Rabbit Inn, and J. George Taylor was standing near the front desk, talking with the bell captain. J. George was one of those guys that would bend whatever ear was closest. J. George spotted me as soon as I entered. I wondered if he was going to challenge me to a duel. "Spenser. Can I buy you a drink?"

  Apparently not.

  "Sure," I said.

  He clapped the bell captain on the shoulder and led me into the bar. The bartender nodded at me without expression as we went by. In a booth on the back wall of the bar was a round table. Three men were sitting with drinks and a basket of tortilla chips. J. George introduced me as though I were meeting the leaders of the free world.

  "This is Roscoe Land, our esteemed mayor. This is Luther Barnes, who serves as city attorney, and this is Henry Brown, who ramrods The Foot Hills Bank and Trust."

  I shook hands all around and sat. The cocktail waitress appeared. She was dressed like Dale Evans.

  "What are you drinking?" the mayor said to me.

  He was a tall, flabby guy with rimless glasses and a gray crew cut that wasn't cut short enough.

  "Beer," I said.