“I never thought we’d build it,” Paul said.
“Never thought you’d run five miles either, did you?”
“No.”
“Or bench press a hundred fifty pounds?”
“No.”
“Or put on twenty pounds?”
Paul grinned at me. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, you were right. I was wrong. You want to have an award ceremony?”
I shook my head. There was very little breeze and the sweat on our bodies dried slowly. On the lake someone water-skied behind a hundred hp outboard. There were bird sounds in the close woods. The area was strong with the smell of sawn wood and the faint burnt odor that a power saw produces when the blade dulls.
I got up and went in the cabin and got a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne from the refrigerator and two clear plastic cups from the cupboard. I put some ice and water into a cooking pot and stuck the champagne in to keep cold. I brought it and the plastic cups out onto the back steps and set it down.
“What’s that?” Paul said.
“Champagne,” I said. “Elegantly presented.”
“I never had champagne,” Paul said, “except that time at Susan’s.”
“It’s time again,” I said. I opened the bottle and poured each cup full.
“I thought the cork was supposed to shoot up in the air.”
“No need to,” I said.
Paul sipped the champagne. He looked at the glass. “I thought it would be sweeter,” he said.
“Yeah, I did too when I first tried it. It grows on you though.”
We were quiet, sipping the champagne. When Paul’s glass was empty he refilled it. The water skier called it quits and the lake was quiet. Some sparrows moved in the sawdust around the new cabin, heads bobbing and cocking, looking for food, now and then finding it. Grackles with bluish iridescent backs joined them, much bigger, swaggering more than the sparrows, with a funny waddling walk, but peaceable.
“When do we have to leave tomorrow?” Paul said.
“Early,” I said. “Eight thirty at the latest. We pick up Susan at eleven.”
“How long a ride to the school?”
“Four hours.”
“How come Susan’s going?”
“After we drop you, we’re going to have a couple of days together in the Hudson Valley.”
What breeze there was had gone. It was still, the sun was almost set. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was softer, the light seemed indirect.
“Do I have to have a roommate?”
“First year,” I said.
“When can I come home? Back home? To see you?”
“Any weekend,” I said. “But I’d stay around out there for a while. You need to get used to it before you come back. You won’t settle in if your only goal is to get out.”
Paul nodded. It got darker. The champagne was gone.
“It’s better than that place in Grafton.”
“Yes.”
“Everybody there will know everyone and know how to dance.”
“Not everybody,” I said. “Some. Some will be ahead of you. You’ll have to catch up. But you can. Look what you did in one summer.”
“Except I wasn’t catching up on anything,” Paul said.
“Yeah, you were.”
“What?”
“Life.”
The woods had coalesced in the darkness now. You couldn’t see into them. And the insects picked up the noise level. All around us was a thick chittering cloak of forest. We were alone at its center. The cabin was built and the champagne bottle was empty. Biting insects began to gather and swarm. The darkness was cold.
“Let’s go in and eat,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. His voice was a little shaky. When I opened the door to the cabin I could see in the light from the kitchen that there were tears on his face. He made no attempt to hide them. I put my arm around his shoulder.
“Winter’s coming,” I said.
HERE’S A PREVIEW OF SPENSER’S TRIP TO LAID-BACK, LARCENOUS L.A. — YOU CAN GET THE WHOLE STORY IN A SAVAGE PLACE FROM DELL BOOKS.
He looked at Candy and said, “Come on, you and your date take a ride with us.”
Candy looked at me. I said “Nope.”
Franco looked at me for the first time. “I wasn’t asking,” he said. “Get moving, huh?”
I said “Nope” again. It had a nice rhythm to it.
Bubba had moved a little to Franco’s right, but neither showed a weapon yet. That’s one of the mistakes tough guys make. They overrate how tough they are. They aren’t careful.
I took the gun out from the cushions and pointed it at them. No harm in being careful. I said “Nope.”
Franco and Bubba looked at the gun. So did Felton. His face got sweaty. Candy didn’t move. She seemed inside a kind of deep stillness.
“We have here,” I said to Candy, “persuasive evidence of complicity between Felton and Franco, and of course the legendary Bubba. Bubba is on hourly wage, I suspect, and doesn’t count for much. But I think we could make something pretty good out of these other two.”
“What can we really prove?” Candy said.
“We can prove Franco beat you up. We can prove when we came here to talk with Sam Felton about Mickey, he called Franco, and Franco came and attempted to remove us. The threat of force was dearly implied.”
“I want it all,” Candy said.
“Cops can get it all if we give them this,” I said. “Felton here will melt like butter on a flapjack when Samuelson gets him down to the Hall of Justice. So would Bubba, but he probably doesn’t know anything.”
“Don’t get to feeling too good about that gun, huh?” Franco said. “I seen guns before. It ain’t going to buy you all that much.”
“If you do anything incautious,” I said, “it cay buy you the farm.”
Candy seemed not even to hear Franco. She barely heard me. She was way inside somewhere. “I want it all,” she said again. “I want to get it myself.” She was looking right at Franco now. “Did you shoot Mickey?” she said.
Franco made small grin. “Sure,” he said.
“You shot him?”
“Yes, I just said so, huh?”
Bubba edged slightly more to the right
I said, “Don’t do that, Bubba. I’m good with this. I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Franco said, “And while you’re shooting him, what do you think I’ll be doing, huh?”
I said, “I can drop him and you before you can clear the piece. You made one mistake coming in here with your hands empty. Don’t make another one.”
Candy said, “You can’t shoot him, Spenser. He’s our key to the whole story.”
I said, “Yes, I can. We’ve still got Felton,” and then everything went to hell. The Mexican woman walked in through the archway and stopped next to Franco when she saw the gun. Franco stepped behind her. I raised my gun. Candy said “No” and pushed at my arm. Franco was around the corner of the archway. Bubba had his gun out. I yanked my arm free of Candy and shot Bubba twice and shoved Candy down on the sofa and sprawled over her, facing the archway. The Mexican woman was crouched on the floor near the archway. Felton was still cross-legged on the opposite couch, body bent as close to double as he could get, both hands over his head Bubba had fallen backward to the floor. The smell of gunshot was in the loom but no sound. The hum of central air conditioning filled an otherwise soundless void. Candy was motionless beneath me.
Then Franco’s voice came from behind the archway. “Come on, Felton,” Franco said. “Get off the couch and walk over here.”
Felton kept his hands clutched over his head and looked up in my direction.
“Come on,” Franco said again. “He won’t shoot He needs you alive, don’t you, boyfriend. You kill him and you got nothing. Besides, I can blast the Mex from here and not even move. So we’ll trade. Felton walks and you get the Mex, huh?”
Felton’s voice was squeaky. “I’m coming.” He got off the couch and scurr
ied over to the archway and through.
I didn’t speak. I could hear Candy’s breath coming a little short beneath me. I could smell her perfume too, now that the shooting fumes were beginning to thin. I heard shuffling sounds recede down the front hall, then the front door opened and closed. I didn’t move. Franco could open the front door and shut it without leaving, and when I came charging through the archway, he could cut me in half.
Then I heard the front door open again and shut. And silence. A double fake? Faintly I heard a car door slam. No double fake. I rolled around the corner of the archway in a crouch. Franco could have sent Felton out to start the car. The hall was empty. I opened the front door and watched the taillights of a car disappear up the street I went back into the living room and looked down at Bubba. There was blood on his chest and his eyes were wide and silent.
Published by
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New York, New York 10036
For David Parker and Daniel Parker,
with the respect and admiration of their father
who grew up with them.
Copyright © 1981 by Robert B Parker
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, New York, New York.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-56946-2
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