Robert B Parker - Spenser 23 - Chance

by Chance(lit)

  "And Marty left with Shirley rolling around loose on the deck worried about her man," Hawk said.

  "So he had to kill her when she showed up out here," I said.

  "Because she knew what was going on, or enough of it to cause him trouble."

  "And gonna have to kill her," Hawk said, nodding at Bibi, "and he gonna have to kill Anthony."

  "If we're right," I said.

  "We might be," Hawk said.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "We're due."

  "I don't follow what you're saying," Bibi said.

  "Did he kill Shirley?"

  "I like him for it," I said.

  "It makes some sense."

  "I don't know why."

  "If we're right," I said, "Marty's trying to run the whole mob scene in Boston. You don't have to know why we think so, just remember the part about how he has to kill you too."

  "That's not news," Bibi said.

  "He'd have killed me anyway, one way or another. In some ways he already has."

  I nodded.

  "I don't know if I can ever love anybody again. I don't know if I can ever be with a man again."

  "That can be fixed," I said.

  "First though we got to fix this."

  "I'm going to get my money back before Anthony loses it," Bibi said.

  "It's mine, and, in God's truth, I got nothing else to care about."

  "Care about yourself," I said.

  "Getting my money back is the best I can do," Bibi said.

  "How you going to get the money?" Hawk said.

  "If there's any left."

  "Whatever he has left, I want," Bibi said.

  "However I can get it.

  He took everything I ever had."

  "Like your style," Hawk said as if he were thinking out loud.

  "Want some help?" I said.

  "I don't want any help from any men," she said.

  "Even you. I know you're a good man. Both of you are good men. But I have to stay clear of men for a while."

  "Help is help," I said.

  "Regardless of the source."

  "I never met a man that cared about me. I know you do, but I can't react to it, you know? Not now anyway. And even you are trying to use me to nab Anthony."

  "I want to make sense out of Shirley Ventura's murder and I want to see to it that you don't get hurt," I said.

  "When you went to Portland, how'd you get there?"

  "Train."

  "How'd you pay for the ticket."

  "I had mon..." She paused as she remembered.

  "Okay, you gave me money and I ran away on you. I know. But you need to understand. I've been exploited all my life by men. I'm not able to trust you. I have to do what I can do by myself. I got a right."

  "Affirmative action," Hawk murmured.

  "I never been on my own before. I married Marty when I was seventeen to get out of the house. Didn't work out. Fifteen years later I took up with Anthony to get away from Marty. That didn't work out, either. I been looking for men to take care of me all my life, and I don't want to do it anymore."

  "Why were you in such a hurry to get out of the house?"

  "My old man was an asshole."

  "And so were his replacements," I said.

  Bibi stared at me for a moment.

  "Well, that's over," she said finally.

  "No more assholes."

  "So much for us," Hawk murmured.

  "Must be kind of scary," I said.

  "On your own all at once."

  "Yeah, it is, but no scarier than my life has been. I know you want to help me, and as much as I can, I appreciate it. I'm grateful. I am. But damnit I can't depend on a man, even you."

  "It's a good thing to change," I said.

  "But it's kind of hard to do alone. And it's kind of hard to do all at once."

  "This is the first step. Don't you get it? I can't turn to you. I want to. For God's sake I'm scared to death Marty will find me. But I simply cannot."

  I looked at Hawk.

  "I don't think I'm winning this conversation," I said.

  " Tears not."

  "Okay," I said.

  "You want to go back to your hotel?"

  Bibi was quiet for a bit, looking at me.

  "Yeah," she said, "I do."

  "Would you prefer to walk back alone?"

  She took a deep inhale.

  "Yes," she said.

  "I would."

  "You know if Marty can find you, he'll kill you. Anthony too, I think, if he had the balls."

  "He doesn't," Bibi said.

  "Can never be sure," I said.

  Bibi looked at me grimly with her lips clamped shut.

  "Okay," I said and made a be-my-guest gesture with my hand and stepped aside. Bibi began slowly to walk back along Las Vegas Boulevard toward Convention Center Drive. After a few steps she turned.

  "I get some money," she said, "I'll pay you back."

  "Sure," I said.

  She went a few more steps back along the empty street. Again she stopped and turned.

  "I appreciate what you've done, both of you."

  "Glad to help," I said.

  CHAPTER 49

  She kept walking. Hawk and I watched her as she went past the Desert Inn and turned right onto Convention Center Drive.

  "We spend weeks looking for her," Hawk said.

  "And a lot of dough. And we fly three thousand miles and when we find her she gives you a speech and you let her walk."

  "Always had a soft spot for feminism," I said.

  "Of course," Hawk said.

  "Me too. Wouldn't be correct, I suppose, if we sort of kept an eye on her while we having it?"

  "Paternalistic and exploitive," I said.

  "What if she don't spot us?" Hawk said.

  "Then it's fine," I said.

  The rest of the way back to The Mirage, Hawk and I had a lengthy discussion as to who would tail Bibi in the morning and who would sleep in. My argument was that early rising was in his genes from all those ancestral generations of chopping cotton before the dew had faded. He felt that this was a racist stereotype.

  He decried racial stereotyping, and explained to me that I was a white-bread paddy with a plantation mentality. I argued that, being of Irish descent, I had no mentality at all, plantation or otherwise. And he insisted that no one was too stupid to be a bigot. He had me there, but I didn't admit it and when we got to The Mirage we stopped in the lobby and flipped a coin and he lost.

  As it turned out the argument was aimless, because forty-five minutes after I got to my room the phone rang and it was Bibi.

  "I'm in the lobby," she said.

  "Marty's here."

  She sounded out of breath.

  "In the lobby?"

  "No, I saw him in the lobby of my hotel when I came back from walking with you."

  "He see you?"

  "No, I ran all the way here."

  "Room ten twenty-four," I said.

  "Come up."

  I had my pants on, and a pair of loafers, when she rang my doorbell. Being a careful person I picked up my gun before I opened the door, but she was alone.

  "Lock it," she said when she came in. Her breath was still coming heavy, and her face was flushed.

  "I ran all the way here," she said.

  "Put the chain on."

  I pulled the spread up over the unmade bed. When I'm not with Susan I don't need a suite. The room was all there was. No view of the volcano.

  "Sit down," I said.

  "Want a drink?"

  She shook her head. She continued to stand.

  "Was Marty alone?" I said.

  "The little man was there, that was with you tonight. I saw him through the door and never went in. There might have been other men too. The minute I saw Marty I turned and ran."

  "Bernard J. Fortunate," I said.

  "The little man that was with you?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Looks like he sold you twice."


  She had her arms folded and she walked back and forth in the small room, staying away from the window though we were on the tenth floor.

  "You mean he called Marty?"

  "I'll bet," I said.

  "Double the profit, double the fun."

  "I'm scared."

  "Don't blame you."

  "I don't know what to do."

  "Stay here," I said.

  "That's the first thing. Don't take off on me."

  "I feel so stupid after all that stuff I said tonight about men."

  "What you said made sense," I said.

  "You're just not quite ready to do it all without help. Nobody does it all without help.

  And this is my kind of help."

  She stared at me.

  "Without your shirt on... I didn't realize. You're a big man, aren't you."

  "Yeah, and you don't need to slip into the admiring-woman disguise," I said.

  "I'll help you regardless."

  "I wasn't... maybe I was. But Marty is a huge man, and he's so vicious. Nobody can stop Marty."

  "Hawk and I will stop him," I said.

  "You're going to be fine."

  "Will you kill him?"

  "We'll see," I said.

  "Kill him," she said.

  Her voice was soft and flat, and earnest.

  "You have to kill him," she said.

  "It's the only way."

  "We'll play it as it lays," I said.

  "If you kill him," she said, "I'll do anything you want me to do."

  "No charge," I said.

  "Either way. I'll go to Hawk's room and you can sleep here."

  She shook her head.

  "I can't be alone," she said.

  "Okay. I'll put the mattress on the floor. One of us can sleep on it and one on the box spring."

  "That's very nice of you."

  "Yeah. And listen. The way you were talking earlier was the right way. There's things some people can do and other things other people can do, and if you need help, it doesn't mean you're dependent. So don't be dependent. Stay with no-more-assholes."

  She nodded, still clenched inside her folded arms, still avoiding the tenth-story window. I unmade the bed, dragged the mattress onto the floor, folded the spread over to serve as padding on the box spring, found an extra blanket in the closet, put a pillow on the mattress, and left a pillow on the box spring.

  "Your choice," I said.

  "I can't just lie down and go to sleep," she said.

  "You can do whatever you like," I said.

  "All I want to know is when you do lie down, where you wish to lie."

  "I don't have any pajamas."

  "Me either," I said.

  She still stood, hugging herself, looking like she didn't know what to do. I looked at the box spring. It was probably less comfortable than the mattress.

  "The bathroom's there. Use anything you find in there. I got a * :

  big day tomorrow, wrestling with Marty and such, and I need my rest."

  I took off my shoes and put them side by side on the closet shelf, a habit ingrained in me by Pearl the Wonder Dog, who saw them as chew toys. I took off my pants, and hung them neatly on a hanger in the closet. I put the gun on the bed table beside me and, ever the gracious host, jumped on the box spring and went to sleep in my shorts. I don't know what Bibi did before retiring.

  CHAPTER 50

  The morning was a little more intimate than either of us would have wished, but we got through it and by nine o'clock were downstairs breakfasting with Hawk and Bob the waiter. Hawk of course showed no surprise when Bibi and I sat down with him. And when I explained the situation he seemed pleased.

  "You check on Anthony?" I said to Hawk.

  "Yeah, my friend say he's here. Room fourteen-fifteen.

  Comped."

  "How nice for him," I said.

  Bob the waiter came by and poured me some decaf.

  "Hey, Boston," he said.

  "Come back to visit your money?"

  We ordered breakfast and lingered over it while we pondered the situation. Actually Hawk and I did most of the pondering. And Bibi drank a lot of tea. But, by ten of eleven, we had pondered up a course of action. Hawk left before we did. I signed the check, left a big tip for Bob because he remembered me, went back up to my room with Bibi, and called Bernard J. Fortunate as soon as I got there.

  "I need to talk with Marty Anaheim," I said.

  "So why you calling me?"

  "Because you know where he is," I said.

  "What makes you think so?"

  "Cut the crap, Bernie. You double-dipped. You sold her to me, then you sold her to Marty. He's in town I want to see him. You know where he is."

  "Gotta make a living," Bernie said.

  "Whaddya want to see him about."

  "Save a lot of trouble, you tell me where he is," I said.

  "Save a lot of trouble for you," Bernie said.

  "Whaddya want?"

  "I got his wife, and Anthony Meeker with me, we need to make a deal."

  "Say I tell him that and he wants to see you, where you want to do it."

  "Vacant lot," I said, "off the Strip, halfway between The Mirage and the MGM Grand, back of a boarded-up Greek restaurant, you know it?"

  "Where they found the dead broad?" Bernie said.

  "Yeah."

  "What if he don't like that spot?"

  "Then the hell with him," I said.

  "I'll get back to you."

  "You know where I am?"

  "Yeah, sure, you're at The Mirage. What am I, stupid?"

  "And Marty's probably at the Grand," I said.

  "People tend to go back to the same hotel."

  "Even if he is you don't know what name."

  "Why would he use a fake one?" I said.

  "Beats me," Bernie said, and hung up.

  In ten minutes Bernie called back.

  "Marty'll be there at one," he said.

  "Okay," I said.

  I hung up the phone and said to Bibi, "Come on, let's collect Anthony."

  She looked at her watch.

  "He may still be in bed."

  "Okay, we'll start there. You knock on his door, and stand where he can see you through the peephole. When you hear him start to take the chain bolt off, step out of the way."

  "What are you going to do?" Bibi said.

  "Reason with him."

  We went up four floors from my room and found 1415 at the other end of the corridor. I stood against the wall to one side of the door, the side the doorknob was on. Bibi rang the bell. There was no movement. She rang it again. A voice said something indistinguishable. Then silence. Then the voice again. Still indistinguishable. Then the sound of the chain being removed. Bibi stepped to the other side of the door, and when it opened, I rolled off the wall and stepped through it, and hit him with a left hook and he staggered back into the room and sat abruptly on the bed. I took Bibi's arm and pulled her with me into the room, and shut the door.

  Anthony's eyes shifted toward the night table and I took a long step past him and picked up a.380 Colt off the table and put it in my coat pocket.

  "What the fuck are you doing?" Anthony said.

  "Solving this case," I said.

  "What case?"

  "This one," I said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

  "Why the fuck'd you hit me?"