Potshot (20 page)

‘So who benefits from that?’ Hawk said.

‘Anybody wants to pick up some nice bargains.’

Hawk nodded.

‘Wouldn’t be the Dell,’ he said.

‘They acquire it, the property values won’t increase,’ I said.

‘Less they targeting the ex-con market.’

‘Maybe they don’t care about that,’ Sapp said. ‘Maybe they just like living off the carcass.’

‘If the town keeps declining,’ I said, ‘there won’t be any carcass.’

Hawk was nodding his head slowly.

‘But if somebody picked up a lot of the real estate, and got rid of the Dell, then they make a big profit.’

‘She said even if it were good the town couldn’t expand because of water limitations.’

‘But if somebody discovered a new water source?’ Hawk said.

‘Bonanza,’ I said.

‘What’d Mary Lou Buckman used to do in L.A.?’

‘Water resource specialist,’ I said.

‘Fancy that,’ Hawk said.

I was back in Cawley Dark’s office with the air-conditioning humming steadily. Dark had on a blue oxford shirt today. With him was a red-haired guy with a big Adam’s apple.

‘This is Ray Butler,’ Dark said. ‘He’s the water resource guy for the county.’

Butler and I shook hands. We sat in the two chairs facing Dark’s desk.

‘I told Ray about your situation down in Potshot. He was real impressed that I was doing legwork for a Boston shoofly.’

‘Me too,’ I said.

Dark leaned back and made a go-ahead gesture at me with his right hand.

‘What’s the water situation in Potshot?’ I said to Butler.

‘The Arapaho Aquifer,’ he said. ‘Extends from around Salt City in the Sawtooths, maybe eighty-five miles down through Potshot.’

‘An aquifer is like an underground river?’ I said.

‘More like an underground sponge,’ Butler said. He had a high, sharp voice. ‘Which holds water, and can be caused to yield it through wells or springs. The water seeps through pores and fractures in consolidated rock, or through spaces between the particles if it’s unconsolidated.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced over his flat stomach, Dark might have been in a reverie, except that there was a hint of amusement in the way his eyes moved.

‘There are, of course, confined aquifers and unconfined aquifers.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Is the Arapaho aquifer sufficient to the needs of Potshot?’

‘Barely,’ Butler said.

‘Does that limit development?’

‘Of course it does,’ Butler keened.

Talking to the likes of me was clearly painful for him.

‘What would happen if the water consumption exceeded the capacity of the aquifer?’

‘It could not recharge at a pace sufficient to the need.’

Everything Butler said sounded like sort of a high-pitched protest.

‘So they’d run out of water.’

‘That’s what I just said.’

‘Is there any possibility that there is another aquifer?’

‘Of course there is. It would be presumptuous to suggest that we know everything about the substrata.’

‘Presumptuous,’ I said. ‘Is it likely?’

Butler paused. How to say this to an unscientific moron?

‘It’s possible,’ he said finally.

‘And if there were an increase in the amount of available water,’ I said. ‘Then I assume it would support increased development.’

‘It would make it possible,’ Butler said, ‘where, right now, it is not.’

‘Anybody been looking for water down there?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know?’

‘In this environment, water is very precious,’ Butler said. ‘We cannot permit it to be exploited without supervision.’

‘So how would you know?’ I said.

‘We’d know.’

‘How?’

Butler was silent. It was impossible that this rube had asked him a question he couldn’t answer.

‘Do you know how?’ I said to Dark.

Dark shook his head.

‘There would be evidence of exploration,’ Butler said.

‘When’s the last time you looked?’

Again Butler was silent.

After a while Dark said, ‘Well thank you very much, Ray, I don’t believe we’ll be needing anything else.’

Butler stood and shook hands with me, sourly, I thought, and departed.

‘Ray’s never met a man he didn’t like,’ Dark said.

‘Be fun to drink beer with,’ I said.

‘If you drank a real lot,’ Dark said.

‘You able to get anyone to check the real estate?’

‘Course I did,’ Dark said. ‘I’m the goddamned police.’

‘And?’

‘And I had somebody go over to the county hall, like you wanted, and look up real estate transactions in and around Potshot. Here’s a list.’

Dark handed me the list.

‘Recognize any names?’ he said.

‘Couple,’ I said. ‘Who’s this Saguaro Development Associates?’

‘Thought you’d ask me that,’ Dark said.

He handed me another sheet.

‘Recognize any names?’ he said.

‘All of them,’ I said.

I took it and folded it over and tucked it in the inside pocket of my elegant toffee-colored summer silk tweed jacket, which I wore to conceal my somewhat less elegant, blue-barreled handgun.

‘We walked through it,’ Hawk said at breakfast. ‘Without the shotguns.’

‘Or the Heckler,’ Vinnie said.

‘I have no shotgun,’ Chollo said.

‘Artists are so self-absorbed,’ I said. ‘You see anything wrong with the plan?’

‘It should be smooth,’ Hawk said. ‘Vinnie got a nice view of the street. We do it right we’ll be right up against them ’fore they got any idea we there.’

‘I want to get a look at Pony,’ Tedy Sapp said.

‘Be easy to spot him,’ Hawk said.

Sapp poured himself more coffee.

‘For crissake, Tedy,’ Bernard said. ‘How many cups is that?’

‘Six.’

‘Don’t you get all jeeped up?’ Bernard said.

‘Sure,’ Tedy said. ‘It’s why I drink it.’

‘You learn anything yesterday worth knowing?’ Hawk said to me.

‘Potshot can’t get any bigger,’ I said. ‘Unless there’s an additional source of water.’

‘Like somebody finds an underground river?’ Hawk said.

I shook my head pityingly.

‘It’s a common misconception,’ I said, ‘that water flows underground like a river. Most aquifers are better thought of as a giant sponge, which holds the water. One such aquifer, the Arapaho Aquifer, supplies the water currently sustaining Potshot.’

‘Anglos are generally dull,’ Chollo said, ‘but you señor, you are truly so.’

‘So are there any other underground sponges beside the Arapaho thing?’ Hawk said.

‘My expert does not know, which makes him very unhappy, but he says it’s possible.’

‘So if someone found one,’ Sapp said.

‘And kept their mouth shut,’ Hawk said.

‘And perhaps purchased some land, cheap?’

I took my list out of my pocket and spread it on the table. Beside it I put the list of names of people who comprised the Saguaro Development Associates.

Everybody looked at both papers while I waited, watching enviously as Sapp polished off his sixth cup of coffee.

‘Appears that we employed by Saguaro Associates,’ Hawk said.

‘J. George Taylor,’ Bernard read aloud. ‘Luther M. Barnes, Henry F. Brown, Roscoe B. Land, Mary Louise Allard.’

‘Read it again, Bernard,’ Tedy Sapp said. ‘It was like listening to music.’

Bernard ignored Sapp.

‘Who’s this Mary Louise Allard?’ he said.

‘Our own Mary Lou,’ I said. ‘Allard is her maiden name.’

Everyone was quiet for awhile.

Then Vinnie said, ‘So what the hell does that mean?’

‘Means we’re in the middle of some kind of very big swindle,’ Sapp said.

‘So whose side are we on?’ Chollo said.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

Hawk said, ‘Preacher might know.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He might.’

Hawk and I sat in the dark on the front porch of The Jack Rabbit Inn drinking coffee and waiting for the light. When it finally arrived it came slowly, from behind us, seeping up over the hotel until it splashed gray, barely perceptible, onto the street in front of us. Hawk poured some more coffee from the Thermos. On the street there was no movement beyond the pale creeping illumination of the morning.

‘You figure The Preacher an early riser?’ Hawk said.

‘I wanted everything in place.’

‘That’s for sure.’

We sat some more, sipping the coffee, looking at the inactive town, waiting. A yellow cat eased across the street and disappeared down the alley to the left of Mary Lou’s storefront. Somewhere from the rooftops we could hear the twitter of birds.

‘You know this ain’t the best way,’ Hawk said.

I didn’t say anything. The coffee smell was strong and comforting in the unsullied morning air.

‘Best way,’ Hawk said, just as if I’d asked him, ‘be to pen them into that canyon and shoot them from up above.’

I nodded.

‘You know that, well as I do,’ Hawk said.

I nodded.

‘But we going to do it this way.’

I nodded.

‘Being your faithful Afro-American companion ain’t the easiest thing I ever done.’

‘But think of the positive side,’ I said.

‘Which is?’

‘Lemme get back to you on that,’ I said.

The light had spread across the street and past Mary Lou’s storefront. Behind it came sunshine, still weak, but tinged with color, and carrying with it the promise of heat. I could feel the tension begin to knot. Hawk showed nothing. I’d never seen him show anything. He’d been cool for so long that if there were something to show, he probably wouldn’t know it. Hawk drank more coffee, looking out over the rim of the cup along the now bright street.

‘Need donuts,’ Hawk said.

‘Try not to think about it,’ I said.

A few people began to appear. There were a couple of fortyish women, in sneakers, shorts and tank tops power-walking on the sidewalk across the street. Some of the shops began to open. Doors were unlocked. Shades went up. Mary Lou, her hair held back by a blue-and-white polka dot headband, opened up on the other side. If she saw us she chose not to acknowledge it. In the hotel kitchen they were cooking bacon. The yellow cat reappeared, looking satisfied, and pattered down the sidewalk away from us, with his tail in the air.

‘Bet he had a donut,’ Hawk said.

We were out of coffee. The street was bright now, and hot. Hawk seemed almost asleep in the chair beside me. His eyes were invisible behind his sunglasses, his gun concealed by a light silk warm-up jacket, the sleeves of which were tight over his upper arm.

Cars began to appear. More shops opened along the street. People spruced up for the morning walked past the hotel. Many of them trailed a hint of cologne and shampoo and shaving soap in the still air. One of Potshot’s two police cruisers rolled slowly down toward the station.

Hawk watched it go by, his head turning slowly to follow it. Otherwise he was motionless.

‘We follow that cruiser,’ he said, ‘we find donuts. Cops always know where they’re donuts.’

‘Ever have a Krispy Kreme donut?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Me either.’

The sun had gotten high enough to shine straight into the windows of the shops across the street when they came. The old Scout was first, and even from a distance, as it turned into Main Street, I could see The Preacher, a contrast in pallor and black, sitting in front in the passenger seat. There were three other men, one of whom was almost certainly Pony, looming in the back seat, the Scout canted toward his side. Behind them came a ratty looking Jeep Wrangler that might once have been blue. There were four men in it.

‘Maybe we can get a donut after,’ Hawk said.

He got up and took off his jacket. He was wearing his big .44 in a shoulder rig, and there was no further need to hide it. We walked across the street and stood in front of Mary Lou’s store, Hawk on my left. The Preacher saw us and said something to the driver and he kept coming, and the second car followed, until he pulled up to a stop in front of us. The Preacher gestured and the two cars emptied, leaving only The Preacher and his driver still seated. Pony was in front of me. But he was aware of Hawk. I could see his eyes shift over and back. The others spread out around us in a semicircle. No one spoke. The Preacher seemed almost amused. Peripherally I could see Tedy Sapp’s car move slowly in from the north end of the street, and Bobby Horse drive up from the south. Otherwise nothing moved in the street.

‘So who are you,’ The Preacher said finally, ‘Wyatt fucking Earp?’

‘I got some questions,’ I said.

The Preacher smiled.

‘Pony,’ he said.

Pony took a step toward us and Hawk’s gun barrel was suddenly pressed against his forehead. Guns came out all around us. The sound of hammers thumbed back was brisk in the hot silence. The Preacher showed no expression. Everything stopped stock-still. Behind The Preacher, to my left, Tedy Sapp was out of his car with his elbows resting on the hood and the shotgun leveled. To the right Bobby Horse was the same.

‘The ball goes up,’ I said to Tedy Sapp, ‘kill The Preacher first.’

My voice seemed blatant in the cavernous silence. The men in front of us glanced quickly around. Chollo walked out of the alley behind us, his Glock 9-millimeter handgun hanging loosely by his side.

‘Let me kill him,’ Chollo said.

His voice was amplified by the silence as mine had been. Bernard J. Fortunato, with his shotgun at his shoulder, stepped out across the street. He didn’t speak, but the shotgun was steady. From the second-floor window of the hotel I heard Vinnie. I couldn’t see him, but the barrel of the Heckler & Koch was resting on the windowsill.

‘No,’ Vinnie said. ‘Let me.’

The silence seemed to twist and tighten. The frozen immobility of the scene seemed to squeeze in upon itself as though it would eventually shatter. I felt as if the pit of my stomach were clenched like a fist. Fortunately I was brave, clean and reverent, otherwise I might have been a little scared.

‘You got any preference?’ I said to The Preacher.

‘This all the people you got?’ The Preacher said.

‘All we need at the moment,’ I said. ‘You know a guy named Morris Tannenbaum?’